Fire
by Tardisblueskys
Summary: There are days when the sky seems dark. There are days when it seems like the sun will stop shining. There are days when sun tries to stay away. There are days when it should. One-Shots.
1. Run

He runs. He never really stops. Not as everyone around him stops. Not as his best friends place a foot on the ground and quit running. Not everyone he's ever loved falls.

He runs as the world's burn. Even as his world fades into nothing but memory, he never stops. He never looks back.

Because for the Doctor, to look back is a way of inviting the guilt into your life. And to run is to escape it.

He lies sometimes. He says he's not running away. He says he's just running to things. That's not true, is it? That will never be true. After 1,200 years one can't simply stay in place. Life becomes tedious. Guilt becomes overwhelming. People become envious. And it makes you want to fall.

No, he's not running to things. He lies. Rule one, right? The Doctor lies. River, you don't know how often he lies.

It's gotten to the point that he lies to himself now. He pretends he's a hero. As the races die and worlds collapse, he pretends to be the hero. He promises that he'll help. He'll save you. Just let him work his magic.

And they believe him. Because he's the Doctor. He can't do any wrong. What kind of Mighty Warrior makes mistakes? What kind of Oncoming Storm can't save a single planet.

As he fly's away and leaves them to die, they remember. They all remember at the last second. The simple answer that could have saved their lives.

The same man that couldn't save his own.

So he runs. Faster and faster each day. Never tiring.

For every planet it's the same story.

'A goblin, a trickster, a warrior. A nameless, terrible thing, soaked in the blood of a billion galaxies. The most feared being in all the cosmos. And nothing could stop him, or hold him, or reason with him. One day he would just drop out of the sky and tear down their world.' As the legends used to say. They always left out the ending. The part where they thanked him.

He stopped saving people centuries ago. For so long now he hasn't been saving. What had Davros called him? 'The Destroyer of Worlds?' He didn't know how true that was that day. The very thought of being branded with such a name was torture back then.

This one, the eleventh him, was born from that thought. He was born hating who he would become. And every second of every day he thinks that.

Nine was born of fire and died of love.

Ten was born of love and died of hate.

And Eleven was born of a fire that burned brighter than his former self ever could. The fire that would light the way to his own personal Hell.

Amy used to think he stuck around because she was important. And in a way she was. She was the one thing he hadn't destroyed. So he kept coming back. He found a way to make himself feel better. A quick spin in the TARDIS, spot someone he hasn't completely ruined yet. And it would put out the flames for a little while.

And then she was taken.

Because of him.

And so he runs.

He can never look back. The world behind is simply a gateway to madness. Never look back, never remember, and never think. He can sometimes pretend that it works.

All the other times he laughs at himself because he thinks he'll believe it.

* * *

**Since I can't seem to be able to do anything more substantial than a couple of drabbles, I thought 'What the hell? Let's make drabbles!' So apparently, now I'm doing this.**

**Sorry if any of the stories have spelling issues or grammar problems. Most of them will be done on my I-pod at 3 A.M. when I seem to be most productive.  
**

**So, I hope you enjoyed.**


	2. First

_**Firsts and Lasts:**_

**Nine was born in flame**

His first sights were ash. His first word was "No." His first feeling was pain.

His TARDIS was safe. Thank Rassilon for that. Wait- should he even say that anymore? After he…

No. Saying that would be admitting it. He didn't do this. He didn't burn them. He's not- he can't be. And she's not alone. His TARDIS isn't alone. Neither is he. Right?

Yet no matter how much he denied, he couldn't deny the burning planet beneath his feet. The empire that would never again breathe.

He led them into war. They thought they'd win. He promised they'd win. A good general goes down with his men. A good Time Lord would fight to the death to save his people. A good man would die with them.

He's none of that, he never will be. He's not good. He can't save them. He watched them burn. He sparked the flame. They're still burning. They'll burn forever. His people, reliving the same for as long as the universe exists. And maybe even after that.

And the worst part is he knew. He knew this was going to happen. He always knew. At eight years old, the Untempered Schism can hold wonders for Gallifreyan children.

Ushas was inspired.

Koschei went bad.

Theta Sigma ran. And he's been running ever since. No one asked why. He went missing for a full week after that day.

He saw. He always knew. At eight years old he watched Gallifrey burn. And he watched a man stand above them.

The Doctor's heart broke when he looked into the mirror.

His first sight was ash. His first word was "No." His first feeling was pain. His first thought was a mix of the three.

**And died of love**

Rose fixed him. He doesn't know how, but she fixed him. He loved her. So he saved her. She's on Earth now, hundreds of years in the past with Jackie and Ricky. She's safe. She fixed him. He repaid his debt. He saved her life. Now it's time to die.

He was born in the fire sparked by the Daleks.

Let him die in the same blaze.

He fumbles around the wires, knowing what's coming. He's going to die. It's going to end. No more guilt. No more life. He can sleep.

Oh he'll burn. In a way, he's glad. He'll know what they felt. Their own soldier, turning against them. He'll know how it feels to die one last time.

He doesn't know when he spoke. Some say he doesn't even know if he spoke at all. The words still escaped him, regardless of whether or not he knew.

"Can you hear me? I'm coming. I'm sorry." He never acknowledges his own words. For the rest of his life, he'll ignore that plea for forgiveness. His death bed will be the first time he remembers it. He'll repeat it.

And then the TARDIS comes back. And Rose kills the Daleks. And for a split second he thinks he can use her. She'll break the time lock. This 'Bad Wolf' can kill the Daleks. She can stop them. He won't be alone. They'll stop burning.

He'll hate himself forever for these thoughts.

He doesn't know what happens. He blinks, and his lips are on hers. His body is aflame. It _hurts_.

His last sight was her. His last words were "You were fantastic. And you know what? So was I." His last feeling is the fire being put out. And his last thought is "Thank Rassilon."

**Ten was born of love**

His first sight is her. His first word is "Hello." His first feeling is strange.

He's new. Brand new. New eyes. Vision's a bit blurry. Not fun. He may just need glasses for special occasions.

Ooh, new ears. Probably smaller now! That's nice. He didn't really like the last pair.

And teeth! That's weird. Never getting over that feeling. New teeth. It's like a new- never mind. He hates thinking about that part.

Uh new… hair! He's got new hair. He better be Ginger for once. Nine bodies, never once Ginger. That's just rude.

His jacket doesn't fit anymore. Sad. He liked that thing. It doesn't matter. He'll get new clothes. Hopefully they won't look like a clown threw up again. He's been through that faze.

He stumbles and smirks. He doesn't pay attention to what's spewing out of his mouth.

Faster, faster, faster! You can do it, TARDIS. Get her home for Christmas.

Something's wrong. He shakes his head. Bad thought. New him hates bad thoughts. Go away. Only good things. Like speed. Go faster!

It's definitely wrong.

He steps out of the ship and sees Jackie before him. Wow, haven't seen you in a bit. You look new. Different. Wait, so does he! He doesn't know what happened when he hits the ground.

**And died of hate**

He doesn't want to. He really doesn't. The four knocks, repeating over and over again in his head. They'll replay long after Wilfred stops banging.

He missed the signs, didn't he? He will knock four times. He's been focusing so long on stopping Gallifrey he hasn't even remembered. The beats in the Master's head. This is his last adventure. He didn't even recognize the fact. He'll die hearing those drums.

His own heartbeat condemned him. And his friend is the executioner.

"Any help here?" Wilfred asks. Or something along those lines. He doesn't care. He's going to die. He doesn't want to go. He's stopped banging. It doesn't matter. The damage is done.

Knock-Knock-Knock-Knock.

Time to die, Doctor.

Knock-Knock-Knock-Knock.

Time to start burning.

It hurts, but that's pretty obvious. Dying usually hurts. He should know that by now. This is only his tenth real death. He should be used to the pain.

But it _burns_. It always burns. Ever since the Time War, everything burns.

He leaves Wilf behind. Deal with Donna. Don't let her burn. He'll do that enough for the world today, he promises.

He doesn't want to.

He watches his former companions. He gives them hope.

_Rose Tyler._

_Donna Noble._

_Mickey Smith._

_Martha Jones._

_Wilfred Mott._

_Jack Harkness._

Goodbye.

And then he slips through those blue doors, and takes her to the stars. His last goodbye. Goodbye old friend. Goodbye, TARDIS. He's already burning.

His last sight was his TARDIS. His last words were "I don't want to go." His last feeling was hate. Hate of the new him. The him about to be born, waiting for his death. And his final thought was "No."

And the Tenth Doctor dies alone.

**Eleven was born of hate**

He was born learning how to hide. He hid from his first breath. He's the body built from guilt.

Nice title. The Guilt Ridden One.

He just has to choose who he is now. And… wait. Fingers!

So many fingers! All ten intact. And his legs are in place. He was worried about that. He does need to run, after all. He has a feeling he'll be doing a lot of that this time.

He's got hair. A lot of hair. At least he's not like his Ninth self.

No, no, no. Too much hair. He's not a girl. No, he didn't. Please no.

No, he's a boy. He was really worried there for a second.

New chin. Blimey, it's giant. Almost as big as a planet. And he was worried about _ears_ in his last incarnation.

New teeth? Don't care this time. Right.

Vision's good. He doesn't need glasses. That's a relief.

Something important, though. Fire, burning, the TARDIS is burning, breaking, throwing, hah! He has it! He's crashing! He's rather excited. He's never crashed before. Not immediately after a regeneration.

No wait, yes he did. Would have been fun though. At least it's safer. He wouldn't want to kill himself just after being created. That's just reckless. He won't even know this one well enough. He has a feeling he might like it.

And it's off on steering.

He wishes he knew that before crashing into the controls.

Maybe the TARDIS will regenerate. Her screws were a bit loose last time. And by a bit, he means that every time he touched a button it would pop off. Not fun when trying to fly a planet to its rightful position in the universe.

He's crashing. He should fix that.

He blinks and he's climbing up a ruined TARDIS. He didn't fix that. He can't help but smile at the little girl who's staring at him with wide eyes. Apples, he needs an apple.

After all, an apple a day should keep him from crashing into her yard again, right?

**And the Fall of the Eleventh is soon**


	3. Fire

**Fire**

It lights up, a ball of pain that turns the orange sky blood red. Every second, the blaze stretches farther. Every second a hundred fall screaming. He's panicking, but he doesn't care. His planet is going up in flames. He had a choice: The universe, or his race. He chose to let them burn.

"Don't you dare." Rassilon had said, as he presses down on the flashing red button. The almighty Time Lord looks so weak. His own blood surrounds him, a pool of orange. One of his hands is completely gone, only a stub and an array of burns in its place. Blood drips from the corner of his mouth. He's lost all of his hair to the flames. He's already got slight waves of regeneration energy pouring out of him. The only intimidating thing left is the steely cold eyes that make him want to hurl every time he sees them.

He knows that he must not look any better. He's already been hit by a stray laser. Twice. He's bleeding profusely from his left side. He can only see out of one eye. A metal shard is still gauged in the other. His hands can't pry it out. They're covered in too much blood. And his gaze isn't cold. He knows it isn't. He's petrified. It's a miracle he doesn't break down and cry at the other man's feet.

"I had to." His voice cracks. Rassilon looks at him like he's the dirt under his shoe.

Like he's worse than the Daleks.

One of the creatures explodes, fragments of its shell flying through the air. Rassilon winces as a piece lodges itself into his left leg.

"This is your fault! You could have prevented this," The fire is getting closer and closer. He doesn't want to die. He shouldn't die now. But it's his fault. "You were supposed to destroy them all at their creation!" The Founder of Time Lord society screams.

"You think I don't know that?" He's screaming now, and he doesn't care. The four words echo through his head like the cruelest mantra in history. 'This is your fault!' It is, it will always be. This is his fault. He's going to kill them. He's going to die with them.

Don't let me die. I'm too young to die.

857. He's young, so utterly young compared to the 10,000 year old Time Lord that walk- used to walk this planet. There's so much more to do. There's so much more to see. Is this the end? Is he supposed to burn with the people he executed.

He used to think he'd die in a more heroic way.

"You had to come up with that stupid idea! Burn the universe to save one race?" He's angry. He's fire. He'll burn you.

"It would have saved our race. Your own people! This is your fault! You could have been a god!"

"Look at yourself, look at what you've become. Ready to destroy the universe just so you could live. What kind of sick psychopath would even consider that. I saved them. I saved everyone. I saved them from _you_."

"Everyone, but your own. You couldn't save them, could you, _Doctor_." His name is spat with such distaste that he visibly flinches. "Not much of one you turned out to be. You couldn't heal any of them. You might as well have called yourself the Undertaker." It hurts to hear that. This entire conversation hurts. He's like a child again, being screamed at for setting the President's cat on fire. Only this time it's not a cat that lit up. It's his world.

Rassilon is furious. His anger lines every ounce of his body. Yet unlike his enemy, his breathing is still controlled. His gaze is still steel. He's as cold as ice.

They're two opposites. They'll die at war. They've been at war since before he was even born. Fire and ice. One burns cold, the other hot. They're natural enemies. It was destined to be like this. They were destined to die like this.

"You claim you're a good man. Good men carry guilt," Rassilon's voice is still angry, but it's quieter now. As if he's delivering a death sentence to a man already judged guilty. "Live with that guilt. Last of the Time Lords." His eyes widen. His hearts skip a beat at those words. He's not going to do this. This terrible punishment. He can't.

At least he won't die.

He doesn't doubt for a second that his opposition can do this. He's rewritten the laws of time before. He can send one man out of the Last Great Time War with a single thought. He wishes that he won't.

He looks at the flames coating the planet. In seconds it'll be completely engulfed. A Dalek falls into it, screaming as it's shell overheats, burning the inside. The screams of his fellow Gallifreyans will live in his ears for as long as he lives.

And then he's staring at the walls of his TARDIS. She's carrying him away. Outside the ship Rassilon is smirking, just as the blaze reaches him.

The Doctor blinks.

Then he's at the doors, pounding against them. He begs her. He screams. His cries of 'Let me out! No! Don't do this! Let me burn! Let me out! Let me die!' go unnoticed by the ship as she takes him away.

He doesn't know how long he pounds against those doors before he feels that fire rise inside him. He closes his eyes one last time, before he's covered in fire.

Fire. It'll follow him. He knows it. His body burns with it. An excess of flames. It'll burn behind his eyelids forever.

When he opens those eyes again, he's a new man.

When he opens those eyes again, he's the last.


	4. Retire

He's suffocating. His lungs cry out for air that will never come. There's a hole inside him that he can't seem to fill, no matter how much air he gulps down. It's never enough. He tries to breathe in as much oxygen as his lungs can take. He can't breath for that long.

Where his hearts used to sit are merely bloody wounds. And now black blood pumps below his skin. Black as the thoughts that run through his head on a daily basis.

Everything is dark. Ahead of him is nothing. His dull, hollow eyes can't seem to focus on anything anymore. He can't find the energy to make them. There's no one to light the way anymore.

Vastra tried to help him. She'd cover the TARDIS with notes telling him to come see her. It's important. The Earth is in danger. Or from Strax, saying he's going to blow up London if he doesn't show up soon. Jenny would talk about how the old man in that house always had his curtains closed and he could be harboring an alien. Or maybe it's just a closed curtain.

It doesn't matter anymore. He's lose the ability to care. He doesn't want to save anyone anymore. His soul is empty. His will to do anything is gone. There's no real reason anymore.

They're all he's ever known. His first sight was her. He's never really known anything else.

Now? They're gone. River will have to go to the Library soon. Sarah Jane is gone. He never even caught the details on how. The Brigadier is gone. His oldest friend. He'll never see him again. Even Jack hates him now. He still blames him for what happened to his Torchwood team.

And his best friends. He can't even bring himself to say their names anymore. It's his fault. He could have left them alone. He could have let them be happy. She could have lived a perfectly happy life without four therapists. She didn't have to watch her husband die 11 times.

River hates him now. She'll scream at him to stop this. To keep those brakes on his TARDIS. To save someone. To stop morning. To help an innocent. To do something, anything.

But she doesn't get it. No one has to die at his hand. He's retired. He doesn't need to hurt anyone anymore. He can just lie back, just like the Time Lords did before he massacred them. He's finally learned his lesson.

They won't burn if you don't spark the flame.

And it's true. There are less fires on Earth when he doesn't bomb the forest. There are less planets burning when he doesn't drop the match. He's letting them choose. Something he's never done before.

Be burned or don't.

They can burn themselves if they want to. He'll help them. He'll not stop them again. The Daleks could kill every last race and he wouldn't even blink. The Cybermen could convert him and he wouldn't even notice. Someone could punch him in the face and he wouldn't even sit back up again.

He's lose the will to live. He's given up. Given up on himself.

When the letters stop appearing on his doors, he knows they have too.

He's not the only one who's given up on the Doctor.

He's not the only one who hates him for it either.


	5. Pandorica

**Pandorica**

_(This one is slightly AU by the end, as I feel it was never really touched upon in canon that the Doctor was just marked the worst thing in existence. We never really get to see the effect it has on him. It almost seems like he didn't even care.)_

* * *

It's terrifying. His hearts skip their beats as he recognizes how close he is to a fate worse than death. He can almost taste the future that is so inevitable, so inescapable.

He's the Oncoming Storm, he shouldn't be this terrified. He should be explaining in detail exactly what's happening to his TARDIS. He wishes he could.

Why is this always how it works? He can ramble on for hours to save his companions, but if for a single second it's him in danger, all he can do is scream worthless words that reach deaf ears. Why can he never protect himself.

Maybe, he reasons, because a part of him doesn't want to be saved.

And that part wants to be trapped in Hell for all eternity?

He doesn't care, just let him go. The icy shackles around his wrists bite into him with all the effect of a blade. They'll do that for all eternity. He'll be stuck here, in a cold empty box, for all eternity.

"Please, just listen to me!" He screams, feeling something wet and cold form in his eyes. No, this isn't supposed to happen. He can save them, he can still save them. He's not going to let this happen.

The crack of light is gone, along with all hope of return to the universe that had cast him out so quickly in the face of destruction. And all of a sudden he can't save himself.

And he's still screaming, still begging for help. For somebody to please, please just save him. He's never begged for anything in his entire 907 year life span. So much for the Oncoming Storm.

Now, he's more like the Faint Breeze.

He's going to go mad. All eternity spent trapped in a box, with only his sonic for company. He can't even reach it anymore. It'll stay forever tucked into his coat. Just like it's owner will be forever trapped in his box.

He tries to make himself laugh by reminding himself that this isn't much different from his old life. His screams grow even louder.

Forget the last of his species. Try the last of any species. It's his fault. He should have stopped them. He should have fought harder. He'll have the weight of the universe on his shoulders until the day he dies. And this box won't even let him die. No trickster can earn a gift such as escape.

Amy, oh Rassilon, Amy. He sent that Auton after her. This is his fault. He should have figured it out.

'Never ignore a coincidence, unless you're busy. Then always ignore a coincidence.' He'll scold himself forever for following the second part of that rule. It'll never matter again. He doesn't think it's possible to be busy anymore.

He wonders if this machine will even let him go insane. If it'll grant him the bliss of nothingness. At least then he won't be him.

He's a mad man with a box. Now he'll always have his box.

He's still screaming. For five minutes he's been screaming and struggling and looking for any little escape route.

No one can hear him. No one ever will. The universe never existed. He's the only doctor that can't heal anything. Not his universe, not his friend, not his mind when he breaks.

His thoughts shift back home, to a seemingly nicer memory. He guesses that he can do that now. It's all he'll ever be able to do. He doesn't have to worry about people asking him about his past, or why he's been staring off into space.

He's listening to a little seven year old Koschei read a story out of a book of famous Gallifreyan fairytales.

"And then, the box opened to reveal nothing. The Trickster looks at it for a while before figuring out what's happening. He's too late. The Homo-reptilia have him! They throw the Trickster into the box and lock him up forever, freeing the universe from him and him from the universe. A hundred years later he escaped and destroys the whole of everything and laughs as it's destroyed. The End." Koschei says, stumbling occasionally over the larger words.

"Cool story." Theta smiles, rubbing his thumb over a blade of red grass.

"Yeah. Do you think it's real? I heard most of these are."

"Nah, just a fairytale. No need to get scared. You scared, Kosch?"

"No! I don't get scared!" Theta laughed at the weak defense and after a couple second so did his friend.

Fairytale, hah. Fairytales are his life, aren't they? They're not so fun when you're living them.

He realizes he's stopped screaming. His throat isn't even sore. He wonders if it'll ever let him feel anything, but the mental anguish that has already overtaken him.

For the next hour he mourns his lost future. He had so much more to do, so much more to see. This shouldn't have happened. Now it'll happen forever.

The Time Lord race will really be immortal. Just as Rassilon always wanted. He's like the men encased in stone back on Gallifrey. He's immortal, but is immortality really worth the price of eternal nothingness?

He never even wanted this. Now he'll endure it forever. This box won't even let him sleep.

That's okay, though. Less sleep means less nightmares. Less nightmares means less torture, less memories.

He can hear a faint humming outside the walls of this torture chamber. The fist sound beside the beat of his hearts and his own cries that he's heard in hours. And it's completely impossible.

The universe is gone, destroyed, never existed. No one ever existed. So what's making those noises?

He hears the whirring of his sonic grow stronger by the second and he can't even move his head to check if it's his own. His eyes are swerving back and forth, surveying the dark cramped space.

Then he sees light, and a dark figure is standing in front of him. And the shackles are off. And he's free. And he's safe. And he's not insane, not yet.

"Doctor?" Rory asks. The Doctor tries to stand, to make sure to distance himself from that box of horrors. He finds himself on his knees, overcome by a mix of pure ecstasy and terror.

Happy because he's free. He's not stuck anymore. The universe still exists. He can save it. He can still help people.

Terrified for one simple fact. Every race in the universe, everyone he's ever saved, has just marked him down as the single worst creature in all of creation. Even the Daleks had considered him swine as they locked him away.

"Doctor, are you okay?" Rory asks, bringing him back to reality. He has to hide it. Hide it, worry later. Follow the mantra. Always follow the mantra.

"Yes, I'm fine. Just a bit unsteady on my feet. Now, how did you do that?" He asks. He wonders if he'll ever be able to thank the Roman enough for saving him from that horrid place.

Hide it now, worry later.

He'll just keep running. He'll stop when he has to. For now, just save the universe.

Hide, then worry, always run.

For now, he doesn't have to stop. The universe isn't ending. Not on his watch. Because a Trickster can never seem to stop tricking.


	6. Remember

**Remember:**

He remembers looking up into the sky, and knowing that they're out there, watching him. He remembers watching those two stars shimmer in the sky. He remembers orange skies and red grass, and the city in the middle of it all.

He remembers seeing two stars in the sky, that his planet orbits around. He remembers rocky plains that no one dared to enter. He remembers seeing them, blinking for the first time as they are first loomed.

He remembers being laughed at and being called Snail, and he remembers laughing with them.

He remembers the swirling vortex he laid witness to at eight years old. How that vortex changed him forever.

He remembers smiling at the sky, sitting in that grass. He remembers the Deca, the first time he ever felt as if he were a part of something.

In the Academy, when he first heard of the Daleks he never knew what was coming. He never knew how powerful those metal pepper pots would become. How much grief they would cause him, how much guilt they would cause.

He remembers everything being alright, because they'll fix his mistakes. They may kill him again, but everything will be okay because they'll fix it. No one's hurt because they still exist and they can set things right.

Then he remembers fire. Then he remembers betrayal. He remembers a hero standing over everything, and declaring the Final Sanction, and everything it'll do for them. He remembers him not even hesitating when asked what it'll do for the rest of the universe.

And then just like always, in the face of destruction they didn't care about anyone else. Just whether they'd survive another day. He regrets having the same instinct after he set off the bomb that ended Gallifrey.

He remembers the smell of burning flesh miles away from the planet. The smell that seeped onto the walls of the blue box. It took four years for that stench to fade. He remembers Jack questioning him about it the first day he stepped inside it. He had made a quick excuse to shut him up. He told him the truth when he visited him again, years after what Jack called 'Miracle Day.' They had both had a shoulder to cry on that day.

He remembers having to do it again. Having to shoot the crystal, having to sentence his planet to execution for the second time. They were tried and then convicted. They'll have to endure their deaths time and time again.

He remembers staring into the eyes of the only Time Lord that ever accepted him, when even his cousins hated him.

Humans, even if everyone on Earth hates them, they still have a mother and father to turn to to accept them. Time Lords don't- didn't have that option. He still remembers seeing that woman at the Academy smile and encourage him to do good.

She was the most logical person he'd ever met. She had claimed the same of him. He'd gone to her for advice on whether he should do this horrible crime, when he was still in his eighth body.

She was the only one who'd told him to do it.

He remembers Borusa and his slow decline into horrible greed and wrath. He wonders what happened to the stone men Borusa was forced to join forever. He wonders if he'd be okay with this. With what he did to their home world. He wonders if he'd smile at him and say he did right. He thinks he would.

He wonders why he always lies to himself.

Millions, on millions of years ago he never would have expected this. When he fell into that loom, he didn't stop to think if he really _should_ go on living. He just jumped. Now, he'd rather that he had let himself be killed.

Everyone he meets now always has the same words. "Time Lord? You should be in a museum."

He remembers when Gallifreyans were looked up to with respect. When people trusted them to do good with the universe. Now they're willing to put him in a box for all eternity.

He wishes he was still there, in that Pandorica. Insanity is a much kinder option than this horrible guilt that crushes him every time he lets his mind wander back into the past. The same planet that seems to suck him in, into an endless void of misery and horror.

He remembers the screams, the screams that plague his worst nightmares.

"_Nodon'tdothisyoudon'thavetodothisLetmycousinlive .I' 'readisgraceDoctor." _On and on in his dreams. Time Lords sleep once a week for a few hours at most. He screams through every last one of them. The walls of his room are soundproof. He still remembers the worried face of Donna when she burst into his room one night to find him screaming in his sleep.

Every night, he remembers. He remembers fire that burns eternally. Fires that burn on repeat with no rest, locked in the same Time Lock he keeps his people in. In a cell, password protected by the very name of the man who sentenced them to death.

He never stops remembering. He never stops hating it.

* * *

"Doctor?" Amy says, waving a hand in front of his face. He blinks, and shifts his gaze onto her.

"Sorry, what did you say?" He says.

"I asked why you're the last of your people." He hesitates, before finally sighing, and running hand through his hair.

"There was a bad day once. A very bad day." He doesn't mention that that day doesn't just happen once.

There is always a bad day. On repeat. For all eternity.

* * *

**A/N**

**This story is becoming more liked linked one shots than drabbles. Linked one shots. That makes absolutely no sense. **

**So, maybe I should have warned you at the beginning, but laziness forces me to put it only now. There's a lot of Classic Who and Lungbarrow references in this. There is also an excessive use of commas, because I'm horrible at using them. It is also unbeta'd. And done at three A.M.. And I randomly put periods and paragraph breaks. And a sentance starting with. And randomly will get a period. Basically, these stories are probably horrible.**

**I'm accepting prompts now. Yay, prompts. I only have a few ideas left, so please submit.**


	7. Raggedy

**Raggedy:**

_(Taking a break from depressing Doctor stories, to make a depressing Pond story. Takes place during the farewell scene of Angels Take Manhattan. It somehow became a depressing Doctor story too. I don't understand my mind.)_

He's gone. She's panicking and he's gone. Lost forever to an unforgiving time that will never let go. She wants to scream and break down and cry, but then the angel will have her. Just like it has Rory.

Why is it always her husband? What did Rory ever do to deserve this? He's loyal, he's caring, he's strong. So why does he have to die 11 times?

And then it hits her. The thought hurts. She doesn't want to say goodbye, she doesn't want to leave the world behind. But the angel might take her to Rory.

The Doctor is completely shocked. She can see it in his eyes. With that shock is an emotion she's never seen him harbor before.

Pure terror.

She knows he knows exactly what she's thinking. He always does. He'll try to stop her, but she's sure she could do it. Face her fear. Fight the thing that has tried to kill her so many times before.

Kind assassins.

They are kind, aren't they? This thing, this creature, is going to take her to Rory. She's going to see him, she's going to tell him it's okay.

"I'll never see you again." The Doctor begs, _begs_, for her to stay. For a moment she can hear every year he's ever lived, every horrible ordeal he's ever been through, in his voice. Yet she can't help it. They're supposed to be together. Just as Rory had said before.

"_For you, I'd do anything._" Rory was always certain he loves her more than she loves him. Today she's going to prove it. She's going to give up everything, knowing she'll never get to see her parents nor her best friend ever again. She just has to blink, right? It's not like she's going to die. She's just going back in time. Like they always do.

She tells River, no _Melody_, to be a good girl. To watch over her Raggedy Man. She hopes he travels with someone. She hopes he doesn't get too attached to them. Because, as she's seeing now, it's not good for him to get attached.

The Doctor shouldn't travel alone. But neither should the Doctor break down like this.

She's not hearing the Predator, or the Oncoming Storm, or Last of the Time Lords. She's hearing her best friend begging her to stay. Promising they'll find a way to bring them back. Telling her to get back in the TARDIS.

"_Come along, Pond. Please._" She feels like crying. Rory's waiting out there, completely alone. Knowing this time, his fate is inescapable. Knowing that he's trapped in a time period so far away from home, never to see anyone he loves ever again.

She has to go.

She can just blink. She can just let the angel take her, zap her back in time. All she has to do is blink. But she can't. She can't just leave without a goodbye, like Rory had. She'll say farewell for both of them.

"_Raggedy Man, goodbye." _And it's cold stone finger is on her back. She feels like she's being electrocuted, and when she opens her eyes again she's in 1978. Five years behind 1983. It takes her six years to find him.

He's standing on the sidewalk, staring at the Statue of Liberty with utter disgust. She's doing the same. After six years she still hates the statue that forced them to jump. He turns away, and moves to continue walking. He's been there for a year. He's memorized the streets. He has to get back to work. The other doctor's will kill him for being late. It's not like they'll fire him though. He's the best doctor in the world at this point in time.

He spots her across the street. He knows her immediately. He knows that red hair from anywhere. Amy Pond. His Amy Pond.

* * *

**A/N****So... I was going to post one that was really awesome in my opinion, that I worked for about two weeks on to make it perfect... So my computer decides to restart destroying all** _six **drabbles I had ready to post. I'm going to throw this thing into a wall soon. So i'm going to rewrite the awesome one and it'll likely suck. When this damn computer gives out i'm going to shoot it.**__**Next time, if I remember this promise and hopefully I will, we get a Nine-centric one with a really weird self-hateish/loveish writing style. i don't know anymore.**_


	8. Debt

**Debt**

Hope. That's what she was. She was hope. She was clever. She was kind. She was curious.

She was so much like them. Everyone he's ever had the privilege to travel with. She was intriguing. She was an unstoppable force. She was funny. Just like the rest of them were.

Just like the people he killed.

And she felt so, so familiar. Her voice is a constant sense of deja-vu. She was happy, courageous, and excited. She was everything he missed in the people he called his friends.

And she passed the test.

It was mere coincidence, he knows it. It doesn't matter what it was, though. She got him moving. She got him in a bowtie. She got him clever. She got him saving people. She was just like them all. But she was different.

She approached him. She didn't stop when he turned her down. She convinced him. She wouldn't stop until he saved them. She grabbed his hand. And wasn't it always the other way around?

This one was perfect companion material. Within a day he knew, he just knew, she was fit to see the universe. There was something about her that he liked. Something he felt when meeting every companion he's had since he left Gallifrey all those years ago.

And she fixed him.

She saved him from living on a cloud in the sky for all eternity. From spending his days strolling the streets of London, just to wade off the boredom. She's the one who saved him.

Usually, it's the other way around.

And she was so accepting. While other people panic at the sight of an alien like Strax, or a walking reptile like Vastra, she didn't even blink. She wasn't curled up on the ground of the sight of the Ice Woman. She protected those children until he was ready to stop it.

She made him question his actions when he was ready to sit back in his TARDIS and watch Earth burn. She dragged him, kicking and screaming through that adventure. She sparked that old place that had long since been burned out. A flame that was hungry for adventure. He'd been starving it for who-knows how many years. It was time to relight it.

Maybe he'll always be in her debt for that. Maybe he'll never stop repaying her.

Though her best quality, by far, was that he couldn't get her killed. She couldn't be swallowed by the endless fire that surrounded him. He didn't know why. He's not sure he ever will. But she's immortal from what he's seen.

She's died twice already. Both times she was reincarnated in another time, another place. Once, she was a Dalek. Twice, she was a hero. Third, who knows?

Clara Oswin Oswald. What are the chances he finds someone like her?

Maybe, the universe owed him one miracle after all this time.

Maybe, he's finally being repaid.

Maybe, just maybe, the universe really does care.


	9. Mirror

**Mirror:**

(_I'm sorry about all the Snowmen drabbles. I just have too many feels and too many prompts that are perfect for it. So… here's another one. It's rather short, though. Next time, it'll be longer.)_

Do you know what it feels like to look back at who you used to be, and spit on the memory? To see the looks of friends who constantly try to bring him back, but know their work is meaningless? To see those people walking down the road and feeling nothing but anger? To look at the world and know everyone here will be dead in a century and you'll be there to see it? To be a hero and loose every ounce of mercy and turn to a villain instead?

The Doctor doesn't know what it feels like. He doesn't care. He's numb. There is no feeling. There is no worry. There is no sadness.

Vastra tells him that he's just isolating himself from humanity, from everyone who loves him. He agrees on the first part. He disagrees with the second. No one loves a destroyer of life, except another killer.

River stops coming to visit him. He can still remember her expression when he told her how he felt about saving people. He remembers her asking why. He remembers the panic rising up inside him as he asked her about their last adventure. He remembers shaking his head and muttering spoilers at her answer.

"_Lake Silencio._"

She hasn't come back since then. He hasn't gone to get her since then.

Strax takes him wherever he needs to go. He hasn't moved the TARDIS in months. He thinks he never will again.

The Hermit would be disappointed in him. He had always told him about the wonders of the universe. It seems like he's a disappointed to every last Time Lord now.

He doesn't really have a choice though.

Because no one else knows what it's like to be hated by their entire race. To be feared by countless worlds. To look in the mirror and see someone else staring back at them.


	10. Other

**Other:**

(_This one's time frame is a bit different, and a bit hard to understand if you havem't read Lungbarrow. It centers around the Other and the fifth Doctor. I'll explain the basics you have to know at the end. Don't read the bottom if you want to read Lungbarrow or are planning to._)

As a child, the Doctor heard stories of three men that built the society that he lived in. The first was the most influential figure in all of Gallifreyan history. A man by the name of Rassilon. He never expected that in his future he'd end up killing that man and his entire race. No one ever thinks of anything like that. He wishes that he had. It would have made it so much easier.

The second man he'd fought in an early incarnation. Omega. The man driven mad by years alone in a universe made of anti-matter. A man without a face. He never anticipated that he'd ever have to fight a man that had been dead for millenniums.

The third man was the most uncommon. Not many outside of Gallifrey even knew his title. In fact, no one had ever known his name. The Other. The man that had interested him since he first heard of him in the Academy. The man whose work was forgotten.

In the days before he finally left Gallifrey, he'd sit and day dream during class wondering what could possibly have happened, why a major historical figure never seemed to have existed. A man with no birth, and no death. They say that he killed himself. No one's completely sure.

The nameless figure had been an obsession for him. To the point he spent an entire week studying him, trying to figure out the secret of a man who never lived. The only historical reference to him being a book written by Rassilon himself.

He only learned more about that man, figured out his very secret, the day that he stole a Type 40 TARDIS and ran away. The day that he'd met Susan, who claimed him to be her grandfather. He'd denied the accusations, but she had been insistent. It was only later that he'd figure out why. And he was given a hint at the secret. A hint that he would ignore, maybe even refuse to accept.

And then one day he went back in time.

* * *

The Doctor had been alone, completely alone. He'd dropped his companions off on some strange planet to get some shopping done or something. He never bothered to check what they did on her own time. Adric is probably going to kill him when he gets back.

Boredom had struck him as he leaned against the console. The machine hummed steadily, trying to calm him. She knows how he gets when he gets bored. She hates to see him willingly put himself in danger. It'll take about a few years for her to completely trust him not to get himself killed. And then he does it anyway.

But that's a story for another day.

He always did tend to forget the laws of a Time Lord. His favorite to ignore at the time was one that he would never make the mistake of ignoring again. He went back into Gallifrey's past.

As he opened the doors, he smiled. He hadn't been on this planet for a while. Even a renegade becomes home sick sometimes.

He turns away from his ship, heading off towards the city.

* * *

Omega is dead. That is almost certain. As far as he knows it's impossible to survive after being put through what the poor man had. He had heard what Rassilon had told Omega. The subtle manipulation that really made the Gallifreyan believe that he could survive this.

The Other never believes a word that leaves Rassilon's mouth. His instincts had warned him early on not to trust him.

It doesn't matter though. He knows Rassilon, has helped him for years. He knows that he would do anything for power. The Lord President wants to be remembered as the powerful one. The one that will go down in history as the creator of time travel. Everyone who worked by his side will meet an untimely death.

So the Other prepares. He plans everything in his head. Every single situation on how Rassilon will approach him. He'll assign him a new job, a new task to finish. He'll make sure that it's dangerous. He'll make sure that it's fatal.

And then the Other will fight back.

If he wants to create a future that isn't ruled by a cruel dictator, he has to fight. In this day and age in Gallifrey, he knows that. He hates it. Because in this world it's defend or die. He has to defend himself, or he'll meet his demise.

Throughout it all he promises himself that if he has to, he'll stare death in the eye and smile.

* * *

The Other watches the man walk through the rocky field. The man marvels at the stones, occasionally stuffing one into his seemingly endless pockets. The clothing he wears is strange, as if he's from another planet. He wonders if he truly is an alien, but dismisses the thought. He's never seen an alien who's so obviously Gallifreyan. He turns away from the man, and switches his gaze to the temple Rassilon has been constructing in Omega's memory. He laughs at the thought. As if Rassilon would ever care about Omega.

As if Rassilon would ever care about anyone but himself.

He hears footsteps outside the door and his heart leaps in his chest. He's glad that he still hasn't gotten that second heart. Most people die during the regeneration needed to earn it. He'll die naturally, likely at Rassilon's hand.

Because that's what the Lord President does, doesn't he? He make Omega think that he'd survive that and look at him now. Dead as a doornail.

He'll be sent away soon too. Rassilon won't want him to live very long.

He has to find a way to stop the dictator. He needs to figure out a way to survive this, and show the whole of Gallifrey the truth.

There's no way. Regeneration hasn't progressed far enough yet. 99% of the trial subjects die at the first minute of the process. The other 1% die within the day.

But, there is a way. There's always a way. He just doesn't want to take it.

He turns his gaze back to the man in those strange clothes.

"Good luck." He whispers.

He sees Rassilon and his men walk into the building. He has to work quickly. The looms are waiting.

* * *

The Doctor knows exactly who the man running out of the building is. The man doesn't hesitate beside him as he runs past.

"You'll never stop running now," He says, as the man passes him. "May time be kind to you."

The Other never does understand what he means before he leaps to his death. And then, there's no way to save himself from the horrid future to come.

_A/N_

_Alright, explanation time. Basically, the Other is a former incarnation of the Doctor who helped found Gallifrey. He realized Rassilon was planning to kill him to steal all of his glory and leapt into the looms. Time Lords were born out of Loom devices, which genetically modified D.N.A. as Time Lords can't have babies. A few million years later, the new Other is created and chooses the name Doctor._

_Yeah… I'm a nerd._


	11. Afterward

**Afterward:**

The horrible thing is that he doesn't care anymore. He doesn't look at, doesn't dare to breathe if he hears anyone coming close. He stares at the TARDIS, and blinks. She's not beautiful anymore. She's not humming anymore. She doesn't speak anymore. There's not a single indication that she's alive or ever has been.

He's almost surprised when he opens those doors that it's bigger on the inside. It looks so much like an ordinary police box now. A police box left to rot in the middle of London.

He breathes, and he feels his lungs fill with oxygen. He feels like it's the first time he's taken in air in centuries.

He looks at the console of the regenerated TARDIS. New buttons and levers and swirly things stare back at him.

He sees a man, watching him. A man in a top hat and suit, with eyes that are so old, _too_ old to be possible. A man much older than his years. Thousands upon thousands of years. Those eyes are older than even the Doctor is.

He doesn't know the man, doesn't recognize him. He turns to move away, and the man mimics his movements.

It's only then that he realizes who that pale, haunted man had been. He's staring at a reflection. He didn't even recognize himself.

He looks at the Time Rotor and memories from a long gone past float to the surface.

"You're turning me into you!"

"Fish fingers and custard."

"I want to show you something."

"My life doesn't make any sense."

"I keep the memories behind a door."

"Do you have a room, Doctor?"

"Rome fell."

He's been ignoring it. He's been ignoring the last request Amy had ever given him.

"_Don't be alone, Doctor._" He's been so alone for all these years. Even after his companion leaves, at least he used to still establish contact with people. Now, the only person he ever talks to screams at him to get his life back together. He never tells her to stop. He can't ever bring himself to say anything to the daughter of the people he killed.

Yet, Amy was right. He has changed without someone by his side. The Doctor is supposed to save people. He's been saving people since he was 352 years old. He shouldn't be allowed to stop.

How many people have died while he sat in mourning? How many races burned because he couldn't bear to speak to anyone? How many planets were destroyed because he was busy making sure kids don't have nightmares?

_"Is this it? You don't interfere unless children are crying?"_ No, he'll interfere. He'll help people. He'll do it in their memory. The Doctor always helps people.

It was wrong of him to think he could stop.

A Time Lord can stop saving people. The Doctor isn't your average Time Lord.

He steps out of those blue doors, in search for that brown haired girl that he'd spoken to earlier. What was her name?

Clara. He'll find Clara. And they'll save people.

They'll always save people.


	12. Dalek

**Dalek:**

He'll never forget the lone Dalek. That sad, humanized creature that begged for a death he would never grant. The hollow, lost soldier that just wanted orders. Orders it would never receive.

_"Kill yourself."_

Did he feel no pity? Was he so lost that he didn't recognize a creature as lost as himself?

_"Rid the universe of your filth."_

He killed them, destroyed the entire Dalek race. He wiped them from existence in one foul swoop, and laughed as the last of them begged for answers on what happened to the others of its kind.

_"You Would Make A Good Dalek."_

A monster, that's what he was. He would have tortured it until it died of its wounds. What kind of monster would he be? Was he so broken that he was willing to fall down to the levels of the same beasts that he destroyed?

_"You Destroyed Us?"_

He _bragged_. He laughed in its face when he figured out that it didn't know. The last soldier of the Daleks, never to know the fate of its commander. So of course, being the monster that he is, he told it. He _bragged_ about it.

_"I Am Alone In The Universe."_

He was crueler than a Dalek could ever hope to be. What kind of man would brag in the face of his enemy of their leader's demise. He's no better than a Dalek, never has been. In some cases he's worse. At least a Dalek will kill you on the spot. He gave them hope. Then he got clever. He made them take their own lives to keep his own hands free of blood.

_"So Are You. We Are The Same."_

They were two different creatures, with the same mind. Both of them kill. Both of them do anything to live. Both of them fought for their race.

_"And The Coward Survived."_

And one of them did try to win. The other tried to destroy.

_"Have Pity."_

He's never held an ounce of pity. He's lost all mercy. Every bit of compassion he ever held onto burned with the rest of his planet. He's lost it all. And now his worst enemy begs him for this lost feeling. A feeling he can never give.

_"Why should I? You never did."_

He tortures it in the same way its species tortured his. He's degraded himself into being just like these animalistic beasts. He wants to stop this, saved this creature. But he _can't._ Because it feels so right to do this, so _perfect_. He's a tortured soul. Every tortured soul needs an outlet to release its anger on.

_"I Am Waiting for Orders."_

Orders that will never come, never did come. So he tortures it as revenge for doing what he wants to do. Stop fighting and wait for his race to come save him. This poor Dalek waits for people that will never come to its aid. Yet he can never feel pity for it. Pity is gone.

_"Oh, and I caught your little signal. Help me. Poor little thing. But there's no one else coming 'cause there's no one else left."_

He mocks it, just like his enemies have mocked him in those precious last seconds of their existence. Time Lord and Dalek alike, both mocking him for his weakness. So he's getting the perfect revenge.

_"You've got to destroy it."_

Yes, destroy the one thing that did nothing wrong. The one thing he sees himself in. Destroy him with it. Both of them are creatures of war. Neither of them should have ever left the war. They both should have died. For a warrior death is a better battlefield than peace could ever be.

_"I'm the only one left. I win. How about that?"_

Looking back on it, he's proud of everything he did that day. Any Dalek deserves it. No matter how human it may appear to be, all Daleks are murderers. All Daleks need to be stopped. In fact, all creatures of war need to be stopped. As he looks back on himself, he can't help but think he's not the exception.


	13. Start

**Start:**

(_Here's another drabble that completely deviated from the point I was meaning to make. [Introduction of the TARDIS.] Lots of Classic Who stuff._

_I'm going to kill this computer. I wrote nine pages in one day, nine different drabbles. I was so proud of myself and said I could take a break from writing for a week and still have six drabbles waiting to be posted. THIS GODDAMN COMPUTER HAS TO RESTART. I couldn't save the files in time, because my laptop is an ass. Meaning one of the most epic, well written stories I've ever written, is gone. Because my laptop is an idiot._

_Which is my excuse for late postings. I'll stop ranting at you. Enjoy the story.)_

She's the most beautiful thing he's ever seen. The dual suns light reflects off of her, letting him see the amazing way each wire was put together. The way every last strip of metal was sewn together. It's the greatest thing he's ever had the privilege of seeing. If no one had said anything, he would have sat there for an eternity or more.

"Theta, we've got to go now. If they find Koschei here, they'll kill him." Mortimus says. He nods, taking a step back from her beautiful form.

"Yeah…"

"Did you see her? She was the best thing I've ever laid my eyes on!" He says, unable to shake the mad grin on his face. It probably wasn't appropriate for the situation, but he couldn't bring himself to stop that giant smile.

"It's just a TARDIS." Mortimus rolls his eyes.

"What's the big deal about it? We've seen a million of them before." Koschei says, fingers tapping against the walls of the cell in a constant rhythm of four.

"She was _singing_, Kosch. They never sing." Theta's smile is almost contagious, and he has to fight the urge to break out into laughter.

"It's a type 40!" Mortimus groans. "They're pathetic."

"She likes me!"

"If it likes you so much, get it to save us."

"I would, but I don't think she can hear me. I think she's broken. No wonder they threw her in a scrapyard. Theta mumbles something that Koschei isn't sure he wants to hear.

"It's probably dead. I've never seen anyone throw out a TARDIS. Even if it is broken." Koschei fiddles with his handcuffs as he speaks.

"She's not dead. I can feel it."

"How about we find a way out of here before they decide to force a regeneration?" The third boy in the room says.

"Not such a bad idea," Koschei says. "We can call my cousin. Definitely not Ushas."

"But your cousin will tell the others in your house."

"They all know what I'm like. Besides, Ushas will feed us to that giant rat of hers."

"Call the Hermit. You're friendly with him, right Thete? He'd help, though he'll probably yell at us."

"I'll call him when we get back to the Academy. Knowing him, we've got an hour before he gets here." Theta states.

"You had to get caught, Koschei. The Ruler's probably freaking out right now. He'll have told Borusa!" Mortimus complains.

"The Ruler," Koschei snorts. "Bit of a god complex he's got."

"Which is why you don't steal a white point star from Acrea when he's the leader of your house!"

"Monk, relax,"

"That's not my name!"

"Everything is going to be fine," Koschei continues, as if the boy had never spoken. "Acrea's too busy trying to get the council to execute me to do anything. Even then, by the time it's all set up, he has the permission of my house to kill me, and he has all my papers, we'll be long gone." It wasn't exactly comforting the worried boy.

"Maybe I _can_ call that TARDIS. It might work. It might be something else that's broken." Theta mutters.

"You're still on that? You're obsessed, mate."

He probably is, but he can't bring himself to care. As long as he can see her and pilot her and take her away from here to ensure that she isn't destroyed. Yes, he's definitely obsessed with her. But is it really such a bad thing?

It's been years since he first laid his eyes on her. Maybe even centuries. Far too long.

This time, he's not leaving her behind.

He's an old man now. Far too old to leave behind his legacy, everything he's done in his life.

Instead, he'll be running to a new one. A new future. A new legacy. A new chapter in a new book. Maybe even a new character that he'll become.

He steps in, and touches the console, running his hand over each of the controls. It feels right. It feels perfect. He was made for this.

Everything begins today.

The TARDIS lurches, sending his head, cracking, to the ground.

He wakes up millions of tears into Gallifrey's past.

The future begins in the past.

He steps towards the door after he recovers from the blow to his head. The girl outside his door introduces herself as Susan and calls him 'Grandfather'.

Everything starts today.

And in that junkyard. When Ian and Barbara meet him, it is a beginning. It's just not _the _beginning.

The beginning was a day he spent locked up in a cell for four hours. The beginning was the day he stepped into that TARDIS. The beginning was the day he met Susan.

The first day in that ship will be remembered forever. He'll have so many beginnings, meet so many people, gain so many friends, and lose them all the same.

But he'll always remember the first. He'll always remember the start of everything.


	14. Angel

**Angel:**

**_(Was planning not to update for a few days so that I could try to rewrite the stories and not have to resort to any losses of back-up drabbles, but then I saw that this story has so many views, and I decided to put it up as a thank you for putting up with me. So here it is._**

**_From the prompt 'Angel'_)**

No, no, no. This is impossible. They were supposed to stay, they were supposed to travel with him for years to come. How is this, no, no, no.

His friends, zapped back as though they never really existed.

He falls to the ground, hands covering his sobbing tear-streaked face. River doesn't blink, doesn't look away. She watches this sick, horrifying creature to ensure that they don't meet the same fate. Besides, she doesn't want to see him like this.

She doesn't seem him stand up, fists shaking with pure anger and run back to his TARDIS. She hears his footsteps as he slips back out of the door. His eyes are as dark as the night.

She's never witnessed it before, never witnessed his anger first hand. She's never seen him this infuriated.

She remembers three words her mother once told her. Three words that describe exactly what he seems to be right now.

The Oncoming Storm.

There's something in his hand that she can't put a name on for a few seconds. Then it comes to her, and she's more than surprised. She's utterly shocked.

He takes a step forward, every inch of his body radiating with never ending fury. He lifts the sledge hammer above his head, and slams it down on the face of the Stone Angel.

She can't help but blink from the shock. She hears something horrible, a cry that breaks through the air.

She opens her eyes again, and the Angel's face has morphed into the most pain-ridden expression she's ever seen.

The Doctor brings down the sledge hammer again, knocking the Angel's arm clean off of the rest of its body. Powder and dust explodes in the air, covering the both of them in a cloud of smoke. The Doctor doesn't hesitate. He brings it down.

Again.

And again.

Until long after she maintains a steady blinking rate, the Angel stops screaming. He still doesn't stop. She doesn't stop him.

He's not the only one in mourning. Maybe she's just better at hiding it.

She stops wincing each time she hears that sickening crack of stone. She stops feeling sorry for the poor, destroyed dead Angel. She still doesn't know the origin of the Weeping Angels. She doesn't truly understand the impact of what he's doing.

She doesn't understand how horrified he'll be of what he did.

He only stops when he can't move his arm any longer from pure exhaustion. She thinks it's been half an hour. The only remnants of the creature that stole her parents away from her is pebbles on the ground.

The Doctor lets go of the hammer, lets it fall to the ground.

"It'll never hurt anyone again." He says. She doesn't say what she's thinking.

It never hurt Amy and Rory. It hurt you much more.


	15. Shadow

**Shadow:**

_(Originated from the quote: "When you live your entire life behind a shadow, when do you finally become that shadow." Origin- unknown. Just wanted you to know And this one was fun to write. Hope you guys enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it._

_So, important. I've been writing quite a few Academy drabbles lately, and I'm considering making them their own collection of drabbles. Before I do that, I'd like to see your view on it. Should I make it a different collection or keep it all in the same one? I'll make a poll for it on my profile.)_

He doesn't know why he has to wear this suit. He doesn't know why the tie has such strange symbols on it. He doesn't know why it's torn in random places, and why half of the buttons have been torn out.

He doesn't know why she makes sure his hair is covered in dust and dirt before they start playing. He doesn't understand who this 'Raggedy Doctor' is, or why he's so important. He doesn't know why she makes him stay in a wooden box she painted blue.

He gets confused when he sees Mels' sympathetic face whenever he's forced into the suit. He gets confused by the paintings in Amelia's room, and her new-found craving for fish fingers and custard. He hates whenever she forces him to try some.

He lives like this for eleven years, before she finally asks him out on a date. He says yes. He's still shocked by the happy expression on her face. He never thought himself as important to her. He only ever thought himself as a replacement for the Raggedy Doctor.

He'll never stop thinking that.

A year later, he meets the man she's been obsessed with for years. The Imaginary Doctor that isn't so imaginary after all. Twenty minutes later, the Doctor left his girlfriend alone again.

He was spoken of much more often for the next two years.

A year and a half after the Doctor left, he proposed. His heart cracked open when she hesitated. Mels told him not to worry. He ignored her advice.

A half a year later, it's his stag party. He calls Amy, tells her how much he loves her and hates being without her. The cake arrives. They're screaming for the stripper to pop out. It's not a stripper that comes out.

The news the Doctor brings only causes new-found hatred to rise up in his chest.

And then Amy's just _given_ to fish-vampire-things. He doesn't even know what to call them. Then he sees the body.

He lets out all his anger on the man he's been posing as since he was a little boy. The man he's lived in the shadow of for 14 years. He has to turn away from the hurt expression on the Doctor's face.

He doesn't know that the Doctor agrees with every word that leaves his mouth.

He learns it on their next adventure.

And on their next, he dies. For the first time he feels his heart stop beating. He feels his lungs stop collecting air. He feels every last cell in his body slowly shut down. It doesn't hurt. The only thing he can think of his how _numb_ death is. He shuts his eyes.

The next thing he knows, he's a Roman. And he dreams of her every day. That red head of hair that he would give anything to see. Those green eyes that he's lost himself in countless times.

Over the long years, that turn out to be just false memories, he forgets her name. He forgets the color of her eyes. And all he can remember is red.

Then she's back.

Then she doesn't remember him.

Then she's dead.

And he killed her, oh god he killed her. He's a killer. This isn't like killing another man. This is **Amy**.

And he killed her.

He can't explain those 2,000 years of memory. He can't explain becoming a legend, a man great empires feared. A warrior, capable of destroying a hundred men with a flick of his sword, as the rumors said. The great prophet who knew the futures of every last emperor of Rome.

They blamed him when it fell.

He can still hear them, when he sleeps.

"Why didn't you warn us. You could have saved us. A great hero you turned out to be."

The Doctor and Amy never ask, they never seem to even remember. But he had a _child_. He adopted a little boy that he raised, that he let off into the world. The child he had to watch die at the sword of another man.

The day his son died, an entire army was slaughtered. History never looked back at that war. The war of the Centurion.

Two thousand years passed since the day he turned plastic. And he saw her again. Mad, fantastic Amy Pond. He helped save the universe. They got married.

They got married when he was two thousand and training to be a doctor.

No matter what he does, he always feels like he's in that man's shoes. His own wife seems to think of him as a replication.

To be honest, he's not surprised. He always felt like he was so far below the Doctor.

When you live your entire life behind a shadow, one day you find yourself becoming that shadow. And then it's too late.


	16. Wait

**Wait:**

(_Sorry for the wait, but I'm back to a good number waiting to be posted. So, enjoy this one._)

Is he evil? Is that it? Is he the darkest thing ever to live? Has he finally crossed the line, killed too many people?

Was the genocide a hint, Rory? The fact that he's killed billions of people, hundreds of races, and at least 64 planets? The fact that he gave up on counting how many planets that he's watchedburn? And the fact that the number that he's lit aflame himself is much higher than any planets he's watched die? Because he turns his back, he looks away. It's not a sight he's unfamiliar with anymore.

"You're turning me into you!"

It's the worse curse any man can live with. Being the Doctor. Being forced to make the tough decisions, and being blamed for them. Living with the memory of the death of everyone you love.

Rory Williams. 2,000 years of memory in his little human head. 2,000 years of waiting for the love of his life. 2,000 years of death, and watching everyone around him die as he stayed young.

At least Rory knew that someone was coming to save him. At least Rory knew that in 2,000 years he'll be free of this weight on his shoulders, and Amy will be back with him. At least Rory had something to look forward to.

Him? All that waits for him is death. They say time goes slower when you're sitting in one place. They're wrong. Time goes slower when you're running from your past, into a future that only promises pain. Time goes slower when your companion seems to think being you is the worst possible thing in existence. Time goes slower when he's right.

Rory glares at him for a second, his eyes showing nothing but pure loathing. He can't help but think that he deserves it.

Who makes an innocent man choose between one wife or another? Who would even dare think of doing that?

The same man that left the love of his own life in a universe of anti-matter, to suffer and die. The man with no care.

He glances at Amy, young Amy, on the ground. Poor, poor Amy. The Girl Who Waited. Who would wait for him? Only someone who can't see behind a mask.

Rory seems more torn that anyone he's ever met. The older Amy outside, filled with anger and raised in loneliness. The girl that has fought to keep her life, and won countless times before.

Or the younger Amy in the TARDIS. The girl that didn't waste her life away. The girl that cried over a man she couldn't even remember, but loved.

It's a horrible thing to turn into the Doctor. The man who wouldn't hesitate in choosing the girl lying in his TARDIS. The man who, if he let himself, would pilot his ship out of there without hesitation if Rory wasn't here. The man who forces another to make these choices, just so he didn't have to bear the guilt of another death.

It's still his fault.

Rory looks like he wants to scream. He almost winces when the Centurion turns away. He almost expected to be punched. He does deserve it.

"Your choice, Rory."

Make your choice.

It's a chance that he never gets.


	17. Alternate

**Alternate:**

_(Doing another of these, because it is so fun. This time, it's majorly AUish. I am truly sorry about this one. It's worse than night blogging, but it was fun and easy to write and I haven't slept in 30 hours. This is not healthy.)_

A day of the darkness. A day of pain and the suffering of knowing that, no, he won't be missed. A day of realizing the universe really doesn't care whether or not he lives or dies.

Four hours of screaming, non-stop. He never questions why his voice doesn't die on him. He never finds a reason to care.

Three hours spent trying to find any escape route.

An hour to remember the screwdriver.

An hour trying to reach the screwdriver.

An hour realizing the Pandorica has deadlocks.

Five hours trying to do anything to break the handcuffs that keep him strapped to the chair. He's too stressed to think of any other way to say what they are.

Ten hours crying, because his best friends are gone.

A day thinking about a future long gone.

A week coming to terms with the fact that the rest of the universe is dead.

A month to mourn them.

A year of mourning his own sanity, because he's going to be trapped in here for _all_ eternity. All eternity is a long time.

Another year of questioning whether he's mad yet. At the end of the year he wonders why it took him so long to realize that.

Five years later and he laughs, because he's definitely sane. Definitely.

Two years and he's wondering why he's counting. He never stops.

Ten years screaming gibberish at the walls and laughing to himself at words he's forgotten how to translate.

A year trying to remember his name.

Another year laughing at how stupid it sounds.

A month trying to remember his past, and laughing at everything that happened.

A week trying to remember the name of that redhead girl that he killed. He gives up and tries to remember the Centurion's name.

A day to remember that it's in fact 'Mickey.'

A month to remember that, no in fact, it isn't. The Centurion's name is Billy.

Fifteen years of pretending he's back on Galliday, or whatever the planet's called. He can't remember. He doesn't remember much.

A millennia before he realizes that, no, he's not insane. He's just happy. Very, very happy. So happy. Thank you Pepper Pot thingys that locked him in here.

Have you seen those pepper pots? They have whisks and plungers attached to them! They're cool. He liked them. And they locked him in here. He likes this box. This box saved him. He'll live forever in this box.

A century of laughter and banging his head against the wall for no other reason than because.

Another century of trying to make up a new language made up of blinking and eyebrow movement.

Another year to remember that he doesn't have eyebrows.

Seven years wondering what he looks like in a mirror.

A month before he realizes he doesn't care.

After another millennia, Red Head tells him to try and escape. Earth doesn't have long. Billy the Centurion tells him to straighten his back, his posture has changed over the past 2,000 years. He remembers being psychic. Is he being psychic now?

Nah, it's his sanity acting up again.

It tends to act like that a lot. He doesn't know what's wrong with it. He probably broke it a couple years back.

Years mean nothing to him now. That reminds him of a song. Something about years and now. He can't remember the lyrics. Or the melody. Or the name. Or the singer.

He hears something explode outside the warmth and safety of the box. A second later, the only sound is his own screams as something deep inside him, the last remnants of the man he used to be, recognized the significance of that sound. And then the man he used to be joins him and they can both be sane together.

He forgets who he used to be over the next billion years. He forgets his name. Forgets his race. Forgets his title. Forgets his friends. Forgets how to think.

All there is is the endless screaming that comes from his own mouth. It hasn't stopped since the explosion of all things.

No one ever comes to the rescue.

No one ever comes to save him.

And if he were coherent enough to think after that first year of solitary confinement, he'd have known it would never have happened anyway.

He was the last hope for the universe. And he failed.

So they failed him.


	18. Sarah Jane

**Sarah:**

_(I've included deleted dialog from TATM. May be a bit off, but I wrote it during class and I'm too lazy to look it up. Wow, I'm putting real effort into this._

_Um, this was going to be another 'aw I'm alone. That sucks' thing. Then I decided to look up Luke Smith for some reason, and I was reminded that Elizabeth Sladen died. Here's my memorial story to her_.)

Alone again. Just like he always it.

They're gone again. Dead, lost, trapped. It doesn't even matter. Gone like the spark of life that used to live inside him.

They were wrong, just like he'd said.

"That's all? True love against the Angels?" He'd said. Amy, oh poor lost Amy, had simply looked River in the eyes and nodded.

"You're right River. I shouldn't have let him travel alone."

Well true love lost, the way it always does. You'll never see your friends again. You'll never see your family. Almost as if they'd never existed in the first place. It's the third time that has happened to Rory.

True love lost. The Angels won.

And just to rub salt in the wound, River had to leave him. He could only hope that it wouldn't be the last time he saw her before the Singing Towers. Luck's evaded him long enough. Let him have this one reprieve from pain.

He almost doesn't hear it, as he stares at the console, lost in his own mind. The four rings of the phone Martha Jones had given him all those centuries ago. He hasn't heard that ring for so many years.

He grabs it as quickly as he can. No one should ever keep Martha Jones waiting. It never ends well.

"Doctor?" The voice says immediately. His hearts sink in his chest. This isn't Martha Jones. "It's me, Luke." They immediately jump back up. Luke Smith. He knew that he knew that voice.

The news he receives tears his mind in two. He's barely able to hang up the phone call. He drops in on the floor the second that that damned voice stops speaking.

Sarah Jane Smith.

His Sarah Jane Smith.

He'd never seen it. He'd never thought of it. He'd almost thought that she'd live forever. Some part of him didn't accept it. Some part of him never will.

He stares at the time rotor in numb shock, unable to process this information. His thoughts run wild, and he can't seem to settle on one train of them.

He's known her for so long. He can't even remember how long ago he'd first met her, how old he had been.

First the Brigadier, now you.

Everyone's gone. Everyone's leaving. Is there anyone left that he hasn't screwed up yet?

Maybe, maybe he'd do better to stop screwing them up. They live longer when he doesn't interfere. He won't end up killing those like her. Like them. Like every last person he's ever met.

Maybe he should just stop.

(_I remember when I wrote this chapter. I was crying. 'Cause I'd heard _a year late _that she was dead. And that Elizabeth couldn't do the 50th anniversary. It still hurts._


	19. Always

**Always:**

_(Alright I have a new plan. I'm going to be throwing in a few random drabbles for Jack Harkness as well as the Doctor. I already have a few Jack drabbles written for a different story I was planning to write, but scrapped. Why not? Anyway here's the story.)_

His hearts skip their beats when he senses it. A tiny sensation in the back of his mind, barely strong enough to be detectable. A human never would have noticed it. The old man rambles on about nothing, as the feeling grows stronger and stronger by the second.

He blinks.

The next thing he knows, he's running. He speeds through rough streets. He hasn't felt this in years. Centuries, even. It's completely impossible and the best thing he's ever heard. He doesn't care about logistics. As long as that sensation stays strong, he'll find them. He'll track them to the end of the universe and back.

After all, it's not every day that he can sense a Time Lord.

He's not alone anymore. It's all he can think as he bolts down those long blocks. Someone's screaming his name, yelling at him to stop. He doesn't listen. The monster-of-the-week can wait. He's busy.

He laughs aloud as he jumps over a fruit cart in an overly cliché move. It tumbles to the ground, scattering random oranges and apples. He almost slips on one.

His face smashes into the pole as he tries to recover his footing. The impact dazes him, if only for a second. He stumbles back on his feet and continues running. He's more careful this time.

He'll never be alone again, will he? He'll make sure that this person won't get hurt. He'll do anything to protect them. He'll save them. He's not the not the last anymore.

He can hardly breathe from the excitement.

He would dance in the middle of the street if he wasn't busy trying to get to them. This is, by far, the best day of his entire 1,200 years of existence. The first time that this face had felt pure Time Energy. Not half-Time Lord, half-human energy. Pure Time Energy. Just like he has.

The screaming of his name is getting louder, as if his companions had taken that poor old man's truck. He doesn't stop to wait for them. If he's really trying, he can probably out-run them. Besides, he'd like to make sure that he's right.

He stops counting the amount of blocks he speeds down after he reaches thirty. He's still not tired. Adrenaline can do that to you. Hope can do that to you. And now he really has it. He has hope.

He's sure he's run at least three miles when he reaches the green street light. It doesn't matter. He'd have run past it anyway, red or green.

Alex smirks as he drives down the road. He's doing well for his first time alone in the car, he thinks. Maybe his dad will finally get him his own car.

The car speeds through the red light, as Alex fantasizes about what he would do if he didn't have to borrow this stupid car. He narrowly misses the man who's bolting down the street. Alex doesn't drive alone for the next three months.

Three miles, four miles, five. Eleven minutes, forty two seconds. And an excessive amount of angry citizens with broken fruits and furniture that he's stepped on.

It doesn't matter. He tries to lock in on the feeling in his mind. It's not him, he's sure of that. He's learned what his former (and latter) forms can feel like. This isn't him. He's not fooling himself this time.

He stops in an alley, sliding to a stop. He smashes into the wall, unable to lose the momentum that has driven him for the past mile. A large cut opens up on his head. He tastes something metallic in his mouth, centering around the point where he'd bitten his tongue.

It doesn't matter. The pain is numbed. He's too excited to feel pain.

For a second he wonders why this Time Lord couldn't sense it. Maybe a different signal is blocking it? Maybe they're over their 13th regeneration. There have been rumors that you can lose several skills if you steal time energy.

His hearts sink as he finally sees the man turn around. He's never forgotten that goatee, that greying hair. The mad glimpse in his eyes. It isn't the Doctor. It definitely isn't the Doctor.

But is a younger version of the Master any better?

The mad man laughs maniacally, as he always used to. He's sitting over a small piece of paper, with some horrible plan that always seems to fail on it.

His eyes widen as he sees which horrible, failing plan that it is.

He's tired all of a sudden, panting from the exhaustion of running so far, so quickly. His head throbs from where he had hit that damned pole. It's a miracle that the Master hasn't heard him yet.

More fluid spills down his throat from where he'd cracked his head. He hopes that it isn't blood. He knows that he's wrong.

When the Ponds finally reach the Doctor, he's holding onto a fence, watching an old man sketch on the ground. Blood drips down the side of his face, and he makes no move to wipe it away. Even when they call him he seems unable to break his gaze.

The second he hears their voices, the old man jumps to his feet and slips away from them.

"Doctor, are you okay?" Rory asks, staring at the paper left on the ground in the man's rush. "Who was that?"

"An old friend. Doesn't matter now." Amy can't help, but notice the other liquid that flows down his race.

"You're crying." She says. He almost seems disappointed by the fact.

"People always cry."

"Silently?"

"It doesn't matter."

"Who was that?" Rory repeats, stepping towards the bench that the man had been sitting on. The Doctor's there before he can reach it. He slips it onto his pocket. Rory can't read his expression.

"It doesn't matter."

"Doctor-"

"What does matter is the lizard fish which we should stop before it gains enough followers to start that religion. That's what's important." He tries to wipe away some of the blood with his sleeve, and only succeeds in smearing it.

He lets the Master run. That much doesn't matter much to him. Only two things really affect him for the rest of the day.

And as he blows up the Big Ben, he can't help but not pretend he's in another place. A place where nothing ever goes wrong.

A place where he'll never be alone. A place where it's not a simple dream to think otherwise.

And a place where he hadn't just let the Master run off to murder his fourth self.

Why can't the universe give him a break for once? Instead, it leaves him alone, suffering from a sick twist of fate that led to his own death.

It'll leave him to suffer, and it'll leave him to bleed for all eternity. There's no escaping it.

It'll do as it always does.


	20. Astronaut

**Astronaut:**

_(Prompt for anyone who wants it, since I don't feel that I'll do it justice. 'Amy's Glasses'._

_This one is major AU. Basically just an excuse for some fun. Damn… I really am sadistic. Enjoy!)_

Amy panics for a split second when she sees that spacesuit. There's something sinister about an Apollo 11 suit in the middle of a lake. Everything is sinister about an Apollo 11 suit in the middle of a lake.

He's talking to whoever is in it. She can't help but wonder who it is. Human? Alien? Robot? Mutated animal from the moon? She notices his slow, uncaring movements as he speaks. There's something off about the way he's acting. Almost like he's giving up.

He dips his head towards the ground.

What is he doing?

The green light blinds her vision as it escapes the astronaut's suit. She sees the Doctor's skeleton flash from a quick second, as the laser passes through him. The shot is fired again, and he's thrown to the ground.

She runs towards him, begging anyone who'd listen that this was just some sick nightmare. That he was never really shot. She's just dreaming and the Doctor is completely safe.

But no, the arms pulling her back are real enough.

When did she run forwards?

The muttered words.

_"I'm sorry._"

Those words are real enough. The stabbing pain in her chest, the tears in her eyes, are real enough.

His hands glow a shining gold that she's only seen once before. The day that he crashed into her backyard, fifteen years ago. He said he'd died before he met her. The light must mean… No.

He stands and the green light flashes again. This time, the Doctor doesn't get back up.

Rory and River let her go and she runs to his side. She hears shooting from behind her.

_Good. Shoot it. Kill that horrible thing._

She's crying over his cold, cold corpse. He's not breathing. She doesn't feel his chest moving.

After all he's done for the universe, this can't be the end. Right?

The first blast feels like being dragged over a field of glass, while slowly being simmered over a fire. It's nothing new. Regenerating always feels like that. Nothing ever changes.

The second is less intense. He can still feel his skin burning under its heat. He can hear himself whimper as he drops to the ground.

He doesn't want to die so soon.

The cells in his hands die, and he can feel them freezing in his blood. This is what it always feels like before regeneration. He gets so cold. Then he burns.

And before he can even think, he feels the frozen blood melt under the bursts of heon energy. He feels each and every individual cell die and suffer in his body, until they're slowly manipulated into turning him into a completely different man.

"I'm sorry." He mutters, and then everything is fire. Nothing is cold anymore. It all _burns. _He wants to scream, but he can't bring himself to open his mouth.

Shouldn't living be less painful? Why does it always hurt so much to get another chance at life?

He hears the shot first. Then he sees it. He'll never feel the pain. Regeneration swamps everything else.

_Goodbye._

He's aware of his back hitting the sand. He doesn't remember falling.

The fire is gone, and so is the cold. He's not even angry anymore.

He's not fire, ice, or rage anymore. What is left behind when everything you are goes?

_"Sometimes I think a Time Lord lives too long."_

How right he'd been. At least now he can stop running, right? For once, he'll be able to plant his feet in the ground.

_It's easy to do that when you're six feet under._

He'll be able to stop running.

_Where does a pile of ash go, anyway?_

He can stop trying to fill the hole in his chest.

_It'll fill with dirt, wherever he's buried._

He'll never visit Trenzalore.

_Unless that's where he's left to rot._

He can sleep.

_No one bothers a corpse. It is 'Rest In Peace' isn't it?_

He closes his eyes. Something's running towards him. They're too late. Before they can come within ten feet of him, the last spark inside of him goes out. He'll never know that the universe cared about him and thanked him in the end. No one cared enough to show him.

He'll sleep forever, unknowing of the parts that he played in saving everything. Because he never really learned it, but people do care about him. He just never accepted it.

Now, he never will.

_(Explanation time. It's an AU where the Doctor does die in 'An Impossible Astronaut/Wedding of River Song. No Teserecta to save him. River never created that alternate universe, and he's dead. Why is writing this kind of stuff my idea of fun?)_


	21. Won

**Won:**

(_I'm sorry for my being American. I'd use British terms as much as possible, except for two things. 1: I don't know half of the British terminology. 2: it's instinct to use Americanisms and you'll find mixed wording like pants meaning jeans in one part, and the British term in the other. So sorry British people. I can't help it._

_Also, in relation to this, I'm looking for a Beta Reader. You'll probably be swamped, as I have a strange habit of being unable to sleep without writing an entire drabble. The good thing is, you get to rant about it and read it early. I've still got 36 pages left to post that you get to read early! I have no life._)

He's all powerful. He's thousands of years old. He's lost count a million times, and just restarted at the beginning.

He's killed entire races. He's wanted throughout the universe for genocide, now. He's slaughtered families, murdered fathers, mothers, and their kids. His greatest score was his entire planet. Who else is such a winner that they never lose?

He's won. He's above them. Rassilon's dead. Omega's dead. The Master's dead. Borusa's dead. He killed them all. There's no one left to fight him. No one left to tell him that what he's doing is wrong.

Not anymore. He's victorious. Time is his toy. The universe is his sandbox.

He'll do whatever he wants to it. He'll kick down the castle of sand and rebuild it the way he likes it. He's the ruler of the universe. These pesky humans will obey him.

And no one will call the king out on his wrongs. They're too afraid of execution.

He changes time, warps it to his image. He feels the past changing, feels the fragile strands of time snapping, to be replaces by an even weaker string. The universe is his sandbox. He'll draw whatever designs he wishes into the sand.

He can feel time change.

Three survivors of freak explosion at Bowie Base One. None reveal how they escaped. The Captain of this expedition ended her life shortly after returning to Earth.

What? That never happened.

The window of her house flashes blue. He hears the blast of a gun. He panics for a second, unable to think clearly.

What?

He did this to her, Captain Adeline Brooke. He saved her. He brought her to Earth again, let her inspire her grand-daughter face to face. How could she?

How could he?

This was his fault entirely. He killed her. She's dead because of him.

He's not the winner. He lost this one. He lost her, this famous hero. The single most important woman in Earth's history. He ruined her chances of an honorable death. Ruined her chances to be a hero.

It's all his fault.

How hard must it have been to kill herself twice? Pushing that final button, setting the countdown to her death. It was bad enough.

But he made her pull the trigger to that gun that he been placed against her own head.

How would the humans think they got home?

The strands of time that he rewrote catch him on the arm. It _hurts_. He shouldn't have done this. He can feel each strand morphing. Why did he think this was good. Time shouldn't be rewritten. It's wrong.

The universe isn't his sandbox. He can't manipulate it however he feels. He can't make a castle out of time.

Oh Adeline, he's sorry.

The Ood watches him with a blank expression. It doesn't move. It doesn't speak. Yet it says everything he needs to know. He asks if this is it. His time ot die. It turns away from it, walking off into the night.

He stumbles back into his TARDIS.

Shock fills his mind. He still can't think straight.

Maybe a Time Lord lives too long. Or maybe it's just him.

Maybe, maybe winning isn't so fun after all.

(_If anyone has any prompts they'd be greatly appreciated._)


	22. Nothing

**Nothing:**

_(This is based on Matt Smith's theory on the Doctor's fear in 'The God Complex' and Rory's strange response about his room._

_Also, to the guest reviewer, I need your account name to PM you._ )

He'd thought there was nothing left to fear in the universe. 2,000 years and he'd pretty much seen everything fear has to offer. He's faced down Death and won. He's killed men and women who tried to take his Pandorica. He's faced down the darkest of monsters and slaughtered them all.

Yet when he opens the one door that has 11 on its sign, he's terrified. He slams it shut without a second glance. He wishes that he'd taken that do-not-disturb sign seriously.

He's a nurse. He's seen people's head crack open to the point that he can see their brain. He's seen people with such severe injuries. He's seen people with such severe injuries that they need an amputation. He's seen corpses. He's used to it.

But seeing those ten men hanging by their necks, without a breath in their bodies, terrified him. The ropes never moved, never shook under their weight.

The worst part was that it was like they were still alive. Their expressions were so life-like, paused as if it were a picture. A picture that would be burned in his mind forever.

And the one who was _smiling_. The eighth man, with scars and burns littering his face, seemed to be at peace. As if he had truly, really wanted death to claim him.

The tenth man's face was filled with pure rage. So many emotions in one expression. Sadness, loss, loneliness, fear, terror, but most of all rage.

The ninth's was bliss. As if, before death, he'd had the best moment of his life. The same expression Rory had had when Amy had asked him out for the first time.

The seventh face was full of confusion. As if he'd never anticipated that the ripe would be wound around his neck. The face of a man who thought he was immortal. A man who thought that death would never claim him.

The sixth man, the one in the rainbow jacket, looked as if he didn't know he was dead. His mouth was open, as if he was about to say a sentence that would never come.

The fifth looked at peace. As if he'd finished something he'd always had to do. Something he had dreamt of since he was a little boy. His life goal, complete.

The fourth looked like he was afraid. He knew death was coming, and he feared it. The ridiculously long scarf around his neck chokes him as much as the rope does.

The third looked pained, more so than any other. Rory guessed that he must have taken an extremely long while to die.

The second looked terrified. Even more than the fourth. As if it weren't suicide, but a murder meant to look otherwise. He feels bad for the man.

The first man looks calmer than any other. An old man that didn't seem to die by his own hand. It looks like a completely natural death by his expression.

The worst, likely most terrifying thing about the entire display, is the eleventh noose that swings in the air, searching for its victim.

Rory's heard the Doctor's talk about regeneration. He has no doubt who those ten men were.

He walks away, shaking, with the horrifying knowledge of who the eleventh noose is for.


	23. New

**New:**

_(I likely did badly. I'm positive I got the characterizations wrong. I'm truly sorry._

_Basically the Doctor is captured by a pissed off race that likes torture. Maybe they're doing it to find out how to use the TARDIS, or they're doing it for money, or possibly to know how to make good fish custard. We'll never know.)_

This was new. This was something she never thought could possibly happen. Something that had never crossed her mind.

The Doctor was always saving them. Now, as they drag his limp body away from the charred ground, it seems like it might be the other way around for once.

Broken glass litters the ground, shattered by the bullets that had soared just a minute ago. Rory tries not to notice the blood covering each shard. The Doctor's blood.

He twitches occasionally in their grips. Rory can't help but wonder what happened to him after the capture. He stops thinking about it. He's not sure he wants to know.

Another round of bullets almost hits them, as the guard picks up his gun again. He's almost sure that this place only hires people that can't aim.

The entire ship shakes, and the sounds of an explosion reaches their ears. For the 17th time in the past minute, he almost drops the Doctor.

The Doctor is heavier than he looks. If it wasn't such a dangerous situation, Rory might have laughed.

Everything about the Doctor is bigger and heavier than it looks.

At least River finally set off the bombs. He might have preferred that she do this after they reached the TARDIS, but he knew she wouldn't wait. She's River Song. River Song likes explosions. River Song hates people who hurt her husband. Is it really a surprise?

Did he really expect her to wait before blowing up the ship her husband was definitely-completely _not_ tortured in.

The Doctor's blood leaves a path for the aliens (or as he'd called them 'Denovians') to follow them. Rory's nursing instincts scream at him to stop running, because he's only injuring the hurt man further. He ignores it, wishing for the corridor to finally end and the TARDIS to come into view.

Why does there always have to be a corridor?

He's unaware of his own cry of "Yes!" when the TARDIS comes into view. This time, the box knows not to force them to use a key. Today, more than any other day, he's 100% sure it's alive, like the Doctor always says it is.

He tells Amy to get the equipment from the medical bay. He's unable to carry the Doctor up an entire flight of stairs without injuring him further. For once, Amy doesn't fight with him.

On further investigation of his friend's wounds, he realizes that the Denovians aren't such bad shots. They hit one of their targets at least twice.

River comes in about ten minutes after Rory realizes that he knows nothing about Time Lord biology and will probably kills the Doctor if he tries to help him. The first thing she does is dematerialize outside of the prison ship. Rory hears the final explosion ring out, the second before they disappear.

She tells Amy to get a piece of celery and tells Rory to get any pain killer without aspirin. He doesn't ask why.

When he gets back, there's a stick of celery between the Doctor's lips and a relieved look on River's face.

"He's not poisoned." She says. Rory will never understand her.

"How do you know that?"

"The celery's still green." She states, as if it's the most obvious thing in the universe. Rory has long since given up trying to understand the logic of Time Lords and half- Time Lords. Between River and the Doctor, there's enough insanity to last for eternity

"Should we- should we get the bullets out now?"

"You're the nurse."

It takes two weeks for the Doctor to wake up from what River had called a "Healing Coma."

He seems more than relieved to be back on the TARDIS.

It takes another week for him to come back to Denovia and apologize for the deaths of their families.

They're chased out by an angry mob of aliens with rifles. The Doctor manages to save them, like always.

Nothing's new anymore. And Rory can't think of anything better.


	24. Murder

**Murder:**

_(I have one question. Are these one-shots or drabbles? I don't even know anymore._

_I find these incredibly fun. Academy Who. Fun days. Obviously, more Classic stuff. Yay! Just so you know, this actually happened in canon. Yeah, Time Lords are kind of screwed up.)_

Bubbles of air float towards the surface of the lake that the struggling boy has been shoved into. Koschei flails, trying to do anything to break his way to the surface. Torvic holds him, steadying him with a single push. Half of his friend's torso follows him into the water.

Their tormentor laughs, refusing to let the smaller boy back up for air that he so desperately needs. It's times like this that Theta wishes he was a real Time Lord. He'd stop this boy, expel him for hurting his friend. It doesn't mean that, just because he's not a Time Lord yet, he doesn't have bravery. After all, they do say bravery is not being unafraid, but doing what you have to anyway.

"L-let him go." Theta says, trying to appear much calmer than he's feeling. In reality, his heart was pounding in his chest. His stomach is churning and he can feel bile in his through. His shoulders shake from pure terror. Even with all that weighing against him, Theta stands tall and glares at the bigger of the three.

_I'm going to die._

The words repeat in his head over and over again. He wants to scream and run and leave Koschei to deal with the bully. Something deep inside him tells him that if he doesn't do this now, he never will. Something much fainter tells him that he'll remember this day for the rest of his life.

_This is the day everything changes._

"What are you gonna do about it, Snail?" Torvic smirks, not moving from his position. Theta wants to strangle him, but it won't affect anything. The bully has already regenerated before. He has a much greater lung capacity. He'll be able to kill him without breathing for five minutes, minimum. Theta clenches his teeth and shoots his eyes towards his best friend.

He really wishes that Koschei had already regenerated and had a binary respiratory system. It would make this so much easier.

"I'll- I'll kill you." Torvic almost drops Koschei, due to the laughter than almost forces him to double over. He shakes from the force of that rough cackle that the two of them have grown to hate. Theta hopes he chokes on his own spit and dies.

When he finally finishes his round of laughter, he takes one look at Theta and bursts out into an even greater bout of laughter.

Two things happen at once, then. Koschei stops moving, going limp in Torvic's grasp. Theta grabs a rock.

He's not exactly sure what happens next. He's holding a rock with chunky redish-orange pieces, and other chunks of some grey matter on it. Koschei's watching him with wide, terrified eyes that can't seem to settle on anything, least of all Theta.

"Th-Thete, you killed him. Why did you- Why would you-"

It's only then that Theta sees the body on the ground. The grey, bloody chunk that lays in his head, now exposed to the air. The same grey matter coats the rock that he's still holding. He'll have to eat again later. His lunch is gone, littered over the red grass.

Red that hides a different shade.

"What if they find out?" Koschei's panicking. Theta just stares at the rock, unable to break his gaze from it. He still hasn't let go of this, this weapon. "They won't let us be Time Lords. We won't ever get to leave. Stuck on Gallifrey forever. We won't have a future. No one will hire us. They'll expel us from the Academy!" Theta finally tears his gaze away from his weapon at those words.

"What? No. I'm not letting us share the blame. I did it, Kosch. You shouldn't get in trouble. I killed him." There, he said it. The words are out. He's admitted to it. It's done. He killed Torvic.

"Stop trying to be the hero, Theta. It doesn't suit you. We share the blame. That's final. Best friends do that, right? Wait, I have an idea! An idea! Thank Rassilon! We lose the body. Dump it in the lake. No one has to know, ever. We never have to mention it ever again. No one takes the blame. No repercussions."

"Won't they get suspicious?"

"They'll think he ran away. Lots of kids do. And if they find him, what evidence is there that we did it? None! We're safe Thete!"

Theta agrees, says it's the best thing that they can do. He'll hate himself for thinking that forever. He'll still follow that mindset throughout his life.

He'll remember this forever.

His first kill.

The first of many.

_(Why do I always do that?_

_End of a story, I take a normal paragraph._

_Break it into many different sentences._

_It seems more dramatic that way I guess. No but seriously, I don't understand my own writing style. What the hell do I do?)_


	25. Insane

**Insane:**

_(It may seem like it sucks [It does, shh], but that's only because it's from the point of view of a mad man. I wrote this one as basically dialogue and then made it third person. It sounds better out loud. I'm so sorry for this story._

_Oh and if you hate and can't read cannibalism, basically… run.)_

They called him mad, the filth of the street. They say he's pathetic. He laughs at them whenever they do. He prefers "Master of the Universe" thank you very much.

He chews on the chunks of meat left on his enemy's bones. They peel off like the, oh what's the word? Oh, that's it! Peel of a banana. It is so _good_. He's never tasted anything much like it. It's the best thing he's ever eaten.

He should try Sontaran next, as a side-dish. They probably taste like baked potatoes.

For a man with a very strong survival instinct, he's incredibly bad at staying alive. Four of those pesky humans spot him chewing on one of their species' flesh and almost report him to the police. He catches them though. They taste better than the last. It must be because they're fatter. Though, they do need gravy.

**Bang-Bang-Bang-Bang.**

Dammit, why won't you go away? You were being so quiet! You were letting him be at peace. He doesn't need a melody to chew to.

The drums don't seem to care about his protests. They scream for him to stand and fight. He's not doing them any good by sitting here and sucking on a bone.

They beat their endless beat, until his head feels like it's about to implode.

"Fine," He mumbles, tearing off a chunk of leg. "Whatever you want. Just be quiet. Shh."

They don't relent until he stands again. His stomach growls, and he's certain that the man across the street heard it. He'll looking at him funny as he talks to them. He doesn't like that look. He knows who he is. That man will tell the Doctor that he's alive.

The corpse across the street is a problem no longer, and he's still hungry. How is he still hungry? Where does it all go?

It probably fuels the drums. He should stop eating. It'll hurt less.

But he's so, so hungry.

**Bang-Bang-Bang-Bang.**

Alright, he gets it, shut up. He'll come back, he swears. He's just… planning. Shut up!

Over the years, they've formed words. Four syllables for each individual set of four bangs.

**Kill-and-hurt-them.**

**Torture-and-kill.**

**Purge-and-destroy.**

And then comes the worst of all, the one he has sworn to follow through his entire life and has succeeded every time. The one promise he'll always make. The promise he always goes through with.

He drops the last bits of bone and dusts off his pants. His wide eyes scan the area to look for a quick escape. He can hear people coming.

Just you wait, Doctor. Remember this, every day for the rest of your pathetic life. Know the words that the drums scream at him every day. The rule that he must follow indefinitely.

**I will be back.**

_(Fifty pages of drabbles. Whoo!)_


	26. Little

**Little:**

_(And this is an example of turning two lines of dialog into the most depressing thing put on paper [or computer]. Set in 'The Power of Three' when they're all in the TARDIS, after the Doctor decides that he can't stay.)_

"What you do isn't all there is."

Of course, it's not. Why would anyone think that it is? Why would anyone want it to be? Why would anyone hope that this is all there is?

Rory looks almost angry at his choice of wording, and he's not really surprised. He doesn't want this to be the only thing there is. The constant travelling, the never-ending running. The shock that he can never seem to reach the finish line. The pain of fire that follows him everywhere he goes. He knows, he hopes, that this isn't all there is.

After centuries of this being his only option, it's all there is for him. And sometimes he forgets that his companions have lives too. Lives beyond him. Lives in one place, one time. A life that he can never earn, no matter how hard he tries.

This life is all that's left for him. Any chance of anything else was lost the same day as his world. He knows what his future will be like. He'll be alone, travelling through the universe and saving things. He'll destroy worlds, commit genocide. He'll kill people, destroy the lives of countless innocents. He'll fight the evil of the universe, and he'll try to save the good.

He'll find new people to travel with, and he'll lose them.

In the end, he'll die alone.

He'll die away from the world that he used to have claim to, that wanted no claim to him. He'll die far away from the people that call (called) him family. He won't die a hero. He'll die the same man that he is now.

Evil.

He'll be lost on some random planet saving random people who he's never even met. They'll forget him, just like they forgot the rest of his race. They always forget.

The great and bountiful Time Lord race will die with him.

Maybe he'll finally destroy the Daleks. Maybe he'll have beaten every last Cybermen. Maybe he'll have stopped the Sontarans. Maybe the Silurians will make peace with humans because of him. Maybe there'll be no more Weeping Angels.

It won't matter when he's dying. It won't matter when he's alone.

He's 1,254 now. Who knows how many years he'll waste doing all that he knows how to do.

Rory, you have options. You have dreams that you can still follow. You have choices.

He learned the hard way in the last hours of his second self that he doesn't. He has no options. His future is cemented for him. It was written in stone, long before he took his first breath.

Humans, they don't have as large a destiny as he does. They don't have the weight of the universe on their shoulders.

The weight that crushes him, always has and always will. With every second, the pressure grows more and more. With each death, he feels himself slip. With each step, he wants to drop it, let it all fall. He's known for far too long that he can't. He's like some sick, true version of Atlas.

In a way, Rory, you're right and you're wrong. This isn't all there is for you. You've got that little job, in your tiny little town, in your tiny little world, in your tiny little galaxy.

And he's got the entire universe, all of time and space to run in.

He'd give it all up for your tiny little job, Rory. He'd give it all up to be human, if just for a day. To rid himself of the pressure. To lay down the weight and say "I've done enough."

"I know."

_(Sorry about the late update. Just finished planning a novel [another, I know. I'm bad at sticking to them] and I finished the Prologue today. Yay for progress! But, as long as I'm stuck to this story I'll be updating slower. Every other night I'll write a shot instead of every night._

_Review if you like reviewing, I guess.)_


	27. Mask

**Mask:**

_(Welcome to another addition of "Impossible Astronaut drabbles/one-shots/whatever the hell it is. They're on the TARDIS at the 'fish fingers' scene.)_

Anger, pure anger. It pulses through him with each beat of his twin hearts. It radiates off of him, and his companions can sense it. They know he's angry. Somehow they always do.

His last incarnation was so emotive. He'd scream his anger, he'd announce it to the world. He'd broken down in front of a soon-to (_didn't_) die old man and he'd died for his pity. His mercy. His love of _people_.

This incarnation can't. He just can't handle it. He can't run around and announce to the universe "I'm angry. Stay still while I cry and break down." He's the Oncoming Storm. Not the Oncoming Sob. Maybe that's why he wears this mask. The mask that hides him from anyone who tries to get close enough to see him.

No one would want to see the real him. If they did, they'd just as soon run and hide.

They better not be being threatened. If anyone is even thinking of hurting them, his Ponds, he can't promise that they'll escaped unscathed. They might even lose their minds along with their lives.

No one hurts his friends. He does that enough.

He sees the pity, _pity_, on their faces. They're seeing him bleed through. The real him. The man that hides himself behind bowties and fezzes and fizzy straws. The man who hides behind a smile.

The man who has earned all of his titles.

_Oncoming Storm._

_Destroyer of Worlds._

_Last of the Time Lords._

_Worst Thing in the Universe._

He can see the fear in River's eyes. She knows this. She's see him angry. She knows enough to fear him when he's ready to pry off that mask and _scream_.

He knows that they can sense his anger. It doesn't matter. He doesn't want to scare away the last two people whose lives he hasn't ruined yet. He doesn't want them to fear him like the rest of the universe seems to.

The rest of the universe sees him for who he is.

He's so broken now, so lost. Only a man with no one to hide behind, will hide himself from everyone else by himself. He used to be so happy, so joyful.

Then Adric died like he did. Then the Time War happened. And then so many of his companions began leaving in such horrible, painful ways. The ones who survived, they got the worst deals. Jobs at U.N.I.T., Torchwood, all of those secret organizations that throw their soldiers to their deaths.

Nowadays, every bit of good in him is a lie.

He scans the three of them for any reaction.

_Worry._

That's all there is.

_Worry and Fear._

He thinks of something he'd said once before, back when he was old joyful Doctor. Back before he died for the tenth time to form an evil meta-crisis. Back before he'd died again and a new and broken man sauntered off.

They'd hidden things from him. They've lied. They're being threatened. He knows it.

How sad a life does he live? The fact that his friends being threatened is one of the first things that he thinks. Because it happens so _damn much_.

They think they can hide from him.

They should know not to put up a disguise, no matter what. They should never try to hide, in front of the master of disguise.

"Don't ever think you're capable of that."


	28. Tired

**Tired:**

_(I should probably explain my views on his age. In his 7th regeneration he said that he was about 1,000 years old. In his tenth incarnation he said he's 907. And 11 is about 1,200 now. Basically, I think he lost count and just restarted in his 8th incarnation and has no idea how old he actually is and always just picks a number that's higher than the last.)_

Thousands of years, floating through the dead of space. Thousands of years of nothing, but the loneliness that has plagued him since the war. Tired of the self-hate that he's carried more and more of with each day that passes. Tired of watching his friends die in front of him. Tired of being unable to help them.

It's painful. The pain in his mind is almost physical now. He's worried that in a few more years, his enemies will see that pain. He fears that the people that he protects will start to pity him.

It hasn't happened yet, though. Few races see the broken, pathetic man that he has become. On Earth, they still think he's some happy, joyful man that enjoys his seemingly immortal life.

In reality, he can't wait until his 13th regeneration.

He'll never let anyone see him for that. Few people understand that that hidden desire. River, maybe. The Master, but he's dead now. Jack Harkness would know, but he hasn't see him in years. Maybe Omega, but he was lost so long ago.

It's gotten to the point that he doesn't want to wake up anymore. Every week, when he'll go to his room and sleep, he hopes that he'll never open his eyes again. He hopes that he can put a stop to the pain, quiet down the screaming that he hears every second of every day.

The running is a brief respite from the guilty thoughts that still plague him to this day.

Sometimes he wants to pilot his TARDIS into the middle of a star, hopefully burning this time. He's almost done it, on seven different occasions. The only thing that still holds him back is the fact that he doesn't want her hurt. He'd never hurt his ship.

He can't control his regenerations. No Time Lord ever could, before they reached the maximum amount of regenerations. The Master had exceeded that amount. It's a wonder that it took him so long to halt a regeneration.

With each death, he grows even more weary than the last. Whether it be the death of a friend, an enemy, or even himself.

He just wants to give up, and sleep.

The universe won't let him.

So he travels endlessly, picking up companions, saving planets, killing people. His life in an endless cycle of life and death. He just wishes for once, the cycle would break apart.

He wishes he could stop at death.

He wishes he could stop being so tired. All he wants to do is sleep.


	29. Lesson

**Lesson:**

(_Updating early because 5000 HITS! Why are you all here? What are you doing? Just... why. Not complaining though. Thanks!_

_Only focusing on canon or mostly canon ships. I might miss a few, as I haven't seen most of Classic Who yet._)

Patience, the first woman he ever loved. The girl he'd grown up with before he was even born. The girl who he loved even after death. The girl who death stole from him.

Rose Tyler, a shop-worker in an invaded store. Nothing clever, nothing abnormal, nothing important. Yet she fixed him. He loved her for it. So he banished her to another dimension, to live out her days away from him.

He thought his hearts would have learned their lesson. He thought his mind could stop them. He thought they had been broken enough to know better.

It seems like they weren't. They prefer to be shattered than to be broken in four.

He'd been clever enough to turn down Amy, when she had first shown her interest in him. He'll always be proud of that decision. He didn't have to break her.

Instead, his mind finds it suitable to find a woman who's like him. Time Lord. Horrible past. Time traveler. Pilot of the TARDIS.

A woman he's seen die.

One day, she'll visit the library. One day, he'll never see her again. He'll cut his hair, put on a new suit, take her to the Singing Towers, and give her his sonic screwdriver. And he'll never see her again.

"Oh try it. You try it!" Kazran had told him. The man who had to choose the last day he could spent with his beloved.

He can't. He doesn't get that gift. He doesn't get to choose the last day. The universe chose for him.

There are some days, he just wants to break down. He doesn't care where he is, or what he's doing. He wants to break this mask that he holds up. And he wants to scream.

_He always wants to scream._

The universe never listens, never cares. He's spent hundreds of years saving it, protecting it, stopping it from exploding. And it doesn't care enough to give him a single break. It can't let him have one person, one bloody person, that he won't ruin the life of. How many people has he killed? How many has he lit aflame?

Adric, the Time Lords, Patience, Omega, the Master, Rassilon, the Daleks on so many occasions, entire races, Astrid, Oswin, and Rory at least five times.

Why did his hearts have to choose someone that he'd never truly understand? Someone that he killed before they even really met. Did it find this funny? To pit him against the two things that he can never truly defeat?

_Time._

_Death._

And every time he tries, he becomes a monster worthy of the name "Oncoming Storm."

So, universe, give him a woman to love. Give him someone who's as lost and lonely as he. Make his hearts skip their beats every time she smiles. Make him smile whenever he sees her happy. Give him love.

So, universe, give him a woman he's seen die. Give him someone he's seen be so lost, so lonely. Make him watch her hearts stop beating. Make his anger and hopelessness be the last thing she sees. Give him pain.

He thought his hearts had learned their lesson.

It turns out, he was wrong.


	30. Warrior

**Warrior:**

He'll turn you into a warrior, if you're not careful. He'll morph you into some sort of monsters, more dangerous than the creatures that you fight against. Once he's got you, there's no escaping it.

Every last thing he touches becomes a weapon.

And then he'll disapprove. He'll blame you for destroying that planet, killing that man. He'll say that's not what he taught you. He'll pretend that he didn't make you what you are.

For Rory, it took 2,000 years to learn that lesson. 2,000 years of loneliness and pain and death. It hardened him, and broke him a million times.

He wasn't careful. Now he's more a weapon than a gun.

He used to be so innocent, so simple. Rory Williams, the nurse. The quiet boy who enjoyed boring old Leadworth. The boy who thought a broom could take down an armed vampire.

And then, he met the Doctor. The Time Lord from Gallifrey. The general from another world, who taught him how to fight.

A general who needed recruits.

And then, Rory Williams had to grow up. He grew different than that stupid nurse back in Leadworth.

He became the man that defeated an entire legion of Romans in 119 A.D. to protect a box. He became the man that prophesized the death of Kennedy. The man that stopped an entire country from going to war with a single flick of his sword.

Even after that, after 2,000 years of death and murder and pain, he retained those abilities. The newly found strengths that he now possessed.

He led an attack on Headless Monks to protect his wife and baby. He killed people, cut them down in a horrible, bloody battle. He punched Hitler. He went into a house of fears, and was the only one without one. He's died 8 times.

The Doctor can't even control him anymore. Lost control of his own soldier, when Rory lashed out at him over that older version of Amy.

No good general loses control of his own gun. The Doctor isn't a good general.

Rory pretends that nothing's wrong. He acts like he's still that happy, quiet boy from his childhood.

He's not. He's Rory Williams, the Last Centurion.

And the Last Centurion doesn't like who he is. But he chose to be the Doctor's companion, all those years ago. All those centuries ago. Almost two millenniums, since he made that choice.

Now he's a warrior.

Now he wants to go back.

(_Review if you like reviewing._)


	31. Vile

**Vile:**

Do you hear the people cry? As their lives are ripped away? As their children are slaughtered without a second glance? Do you feel no shame? Do you feel no guilt?

No, you silently say, I do not feel such petty emotions.

Just as you were designed, pity seems to not exist in your mutated mind.

Were the Thals not enough? Their destruction, unimportant? No, the universe or nothing for you. You're pathetic.

You hide behind your little sheets of metal. You sit in comfort while our men burn. While our women are devoured. While our children are vaporized. You possess no care.

Do you feel no care? None at all?

Yes, you seem to say, I feel success.

You and your army of mutations and metal. You and your fellow soldiers of death.

Everything will end, and you won't bat an eye. You can't anymore. You don't have an eye to bat. You'll go willingly, unblinkingly, to your death. If you could, you would smile as you face her. You'd shake hands with Death and welcome her to our world.

You already do.

How many must die before you are satisfied? How many screaming people must stand over cousins who never made it to their second life? How many people will never see their House again? How many will never say goodbye? How many before you're finally happy with the toll that you've said upon us.

This time, you truly do speak.

"All of them."

You're sick. The Doctor was right, he's always been right, about you. You're all creatures of Death. Your great leader sold you to her, in return for what seems like immortality.

"The Time Lords will surrender or die."

Never. My race, we are proud. We are not weak. We are not as you are. We are not like the Kaled.

"We are not Kaled. We are-"

Yes, I know what you are. Radiation poisoned men in bronze suits. And you feel shame at the name of Time Lord? We are not monster. You are the monster, Creature. This is what you have caused. This chaos. All those men out there, dying those horrible deaths? It's your fault.

Time Lord and Lady alike. Nightmare Children. The Guardians. And you creatures of plague and war. We will all die here.

"If we must."

That is all you have to say? That's all you're willing to do? Kill yourself to destroy entire races?

Do you see that boy regenerating? He's glowing. A phenomenon that only occurs when there is too little Gallifreyans left alive. It will get stronger as we reach the end. The light will grow brighter and brighter, until all is fire. Is that what you wish? To see the world burn?

"That is all we desire."

Do you never fail to sicken me? Must you always find a new way to disgust me?

"You shall be destroyed."

I know. Must you keep repeating that? It's becoming rather repetitive.

He warned us, you know. The Doctor told us of the threat that you posed.

We almost heeded his warning. You should be dead, never existent. You should be a pile of tentacles on the ground, as we speak. Instead, he refused to destroy you. I think he would. If he had the choice, you'd be dead.

Instead, you evaded your own demise. Much like a prisoner would attempt to do by escaping his prison. He'd been gone for a year, maybe two. Then he'd be hauled back in and murdered for his crimes, if the original charge stated so. You've only postponed your end.

Your time is up, you know. The Doctor told me of his plans. The war ends today.

"And who are you to state this?"

Me? I'm Jelpax advisor to the Lady Romana, as well as a general. And I sentence you to death, vile creature. Prepare for your end. Your death reaches you in an hour. I do hope that your sleep isn't peaceful.

_(Explanation time. Jelpax, the Doctor's friend from the Academy years, has come to tell a captured Dalek of it's inevitable end, during the Time War. I decided that he'd have a flare for the dramatics._

_Jelpax is going to show up a lot, so I hope you like him!_

_Due to my new policy of just emailing files to my computer, I have a warning for you. I might miss some things, so you have to know. The phrase "(I)" means Italics begin. The phrase "(IE)" is End Italics. Same for Bold, just replace I with B.)_


	32. Red

**Red:**

It's lonely, that last year. He has to rebuild his life completely.

He becomes a doctor. The best in the whole of New York. The best doctor in the

world. The one that could _cure_ people. He doesn't just make the pain lessen. He saves lives.

It's hard, of course. 1938 didn't have the best medical equipment. Most of his patients with major disorders don't make it out of his office. It hurts him, but seeing the people who do walk out, alive, make it all seem worth it.

He's busy constantly. He doesn't have any free time anymore. Some days, it feels like half of New York is waiting outside his door.

They used to tell him he's a stupid immigrant and should be ignored. Then they started calling him "hero".

He still sends money to that family that housed him in those first few days. The days when he was completely alone. The first days since he was sent back.

They're probably rich now. They send him letters, telling him to stop. They say they're rich enough. He'll send them money until the day that he stops breathing.

Their daughter, she reminds him of Amy. They share -will share the same hair. That beautiful red that makes his head spin.

Amy's safe, at least. She's probably saving another race from extinction in a random galaxy.

Some nights, he'll sit outside the house that he bought for himself. He'll stay there for hours, just watching the stars. His patients have stopped whispering about his strange habits. They've even stopped pestering him on his strange dialect.

They say that even the best can't be perfect.

He pretends to see the TARDIS flinging itself through the air, ready to crash into him. Some days, he hopes it'll find him. He hopes that he'll be saved.

It'll never does.

But that's okay. He's helping people now. He's doing more than he ever could, as a nurse. He's training other doctors, teaching them to save lives.

He's saving people.

He really has turned into the Doctor, hasn't he? A 2,000 year old time traveling doctor, who saves people.

He's proud. Proud of himself, of his co-workers, of his patients. The patients that trust him to save their lives. The trainees that trust him to teach them how to save lives.

Amy'd be proud.

He's taking care of one of the less injured patients, when he sees it. He stares out of his window, mouth hanging open in absolute shock. Red. That color...

He tries to speak, and nothing comes out.

"Are you quite alright, Doctor Pond?" The patient, Henry Donovan, asks him.

"Y-yes, I'm fine. Can I just, Uh, step outside for a moment?"

"Do as you wish, Doctor Pond. This is _your_ establishment."

"Yeah..." He's out the door in a second, and he's holding Amy in his arms again.

He's sure that he's crying and so is she. She's smiling, and calling him a "stupid face". He's missed that so much.

The line of the sick are watching him, utter confusion written on their faces.

He's never told anyone about his lost love. He never thought they'd need to know. He never asks how she found him. He never asks why she was crying, it hadn't been long for her, right?

Rory Williams never learns how long his wife had been away from him. She'll never tell him. She doesn't want him to know about the six years that she spent alone.

He'll ask what happened to the Doctor, why he couldn't save them. She cries, then too.

_(Basically, my painful theory on what happened in that 5 year time frame for Rory. Or, 1 year time frame. 5 year for Amy._

_Review if you like reviewing. I'd respond to them all, but I'm socially awkward and don't enjoy conversation.)_


	33. Mutation

**Mutations:**

_(I know it's all dialog, but it's fun. And I know it sucks, but it's not meant to be good or serious at all._

_Why is this my favorite part of the entire story? Probably because Theta, Koschei, and Mortimus being idiots. /Maybe Ushas soon. That would be really funny./_

_So, I'm thinking of changing the description as the current one doesn't suit the new style of this story. Anyone have any ideas?)_

"Are you sure about this? Is it safe?" Mortimus really wonders why he stays around these two. He's going to get himself killed someday, and it'll be all their fault.

"'Course not. I'm Koschei. Me and safe don't mix."

"And I'm Mortimus. Death and I don't mix."

"Actually, in some languages, Mort means dead." He can hear the laughter in Theta's voice.

"Quiet," They're laughing. At him! They're laughing at him! How dare they?

"Quiet, fools."

"Sorry, Monk. We'll be good." Koschei promises.

"That's not my name."

"No, Mort's right, Kosch. We should probably stay quiet." Thank you, Theta. Someone on his side.

"Why?" Koschei asks.

"We're in the middle of the Lord President's office."

"That's a good point."

"Just get the rat, and let's leave, Oakdown. We mustn't stay any longer." The shortest of the boys, Mortimus, states.

"Why don't you, Mort? All you ever seem to do is whine and complain about how (I) we're (IE) lazy. Do it for yourself." Theta states.

"I'm simply brain, not the muscle of the Deca."

"No, I'm pretty sure Ushas is the brain. She did mutate that rat perfectly. All you've done is throw a beaker of water in an acid pool."

"And that exploded." Koschei feels the need to comment. As always, Mortimus wishes he didn't have that need.

"And what are you, Theta?"

"I'm the philosopher. The one who thinks about the future."

"Magnus?"

"Tactics."

"I got one. What the hell's Vansel?" Koschei asks. There's a pause as the youngest scrambles to think. There's a shrug and a laugh.

"You got me there. You gotta ask Ushas."

"Speaking of Ushas, I have spotted the rat." Mortimus whispers, breaking them away from a chance for yet another topic change. You can never seem to keep a conversation on one topic with these two.

"Where?"

"It's by the table, and..." He doesn't finish the sentence, before he drains himself of the food he'd eaten for breakfast.

"What, what happened? Is it blood?" Koschei leans on the sick boy as he tries to earn a better view.

"I have a philosophy for you, Theta. Giant rats should not be kept near cats."

"Thanks. I'll tell the rest of us." He responds, sarcasm dripping from his voice.

"Um, Koschei. If you enjoy your life, you should run." Mortimus takes a step back. His back hits the wall, and he panics for a second.

"Why?"

"Because that wasn't any old cat. It was the Lord Presidents."

They laugh all the way home. Mortimus just screams.

He really hates the rest of the Deca.

_(From now on, considering the fact that most Academy!Who seems to be all dialog for me, I'm going to try to do it in transcript format. Basically what I'm saying is I'm throwing away my last shred of normality in this entire story and making it completely odd. Sorry, but it'll be easier for you guys to understand and for me to write.)_


	34. Never

**Never:**

There are days when the sky seems dark. There are days when it seems like the sun will stop shining. There are days when it seems like it all stops moving.

There are days when it should.

The moon stops reflecting, the world stops turning. Smiles turn into frowns, and laughter into tears. All happiness is lost in a sea of sorrow.

There are days, weeks even, when the memories force their way to the surface. The tortured, lost days of aimless wandering. The days that never mattered, never were. The days that still haunt the memories of the survivors.

Nightmares force their way through the flimsy wall the mind puts up. In these days, sleep is a forgotten concept. In these nights, sleep is only a land of horror that swallows all good in the world.

Insomnia. That's the name they give it. They're wrong.

They're always wrong.

It's not insomnia. It's memory. Memory that forces her mind to keep running, regardless of how long she's been awake. That's not insomnia. Right?

They called it depression.

Some called it insanity.

But it all happened. For every survivor, it still happened.

The days that never were, that were lost in paradox. The torturous days of mankind, where all were slaves.

The days of the Master and his Toclafane. The days of pain and horror. The days of slavery and loneliness.

There are days when she refuses to get up, forgets to stand. There are days that all hope seems lost. There are days when she forgets how to breathe. There are nights where she's back there. Back in the Year From Hell. Back in the Year That Never Was.

How many died that year? How many were given a second chance? How many don't know of the chance they received?

She never asked for this. She never asked for such a pain. She never asked to be so lonely, one of the few with any memory of those days.

Martha, she signed up for this. She climbed in that police box (the one that ruined everything. The one that destroyed everything by making it possible), and she left to do that_ thing_ for days on end.

There are days when she wants to give up and sink back into a place where that never happened. When she wants to be like the people in that naive world that forgot.

The same people who think the prime minister was shot for no reason. Who voted for him because he seemed kind. The psychopath who could hide his insanity.

She'd like to be like one of the naive. One of the forgotten. One of the non-believers.

She wants to say that never happened.

She can't deny it. The world decided to let her in on a secret of a world that never was.

She wishes it hadn't.

_(Just to make this clear, that was Tish Jones. In this drabble, she's still suffering from the events of 'Last of the Time Lords'_

_I'm sorry. I didn't notice how long it's been. You have permission to throw ONE pitchfork at me. Just one!)_


	35. A Mild Curiosity in a Junkyard

**Curiosity:**

_(I'm trying to focus on reading these transcripts. I really am. Then I come across a brilliant line and before I know it, I'm writing one of these. Damn you, inspiration riddled mind._

_This is going to be a 2 part Drabble. One from Ian's point of view, and one from Eleven's.)_

It all started so simply. A mild curiosity in a junkyard. A simple thought of "Maybe this child is too smart for her age" that led to a million different things.

A simple question that led to the creation of the most feared thing in the universe. Two teachers, one science, one history, that would change the fate of the universe forever.

Could you imagine what the universe would look like without that mild curiosity? Could you imagine what the state of Earth would be?

Had Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright never followed their student to a junkyard and into a police box, I would not be here to write this. You would not be here to read this. No one would be, save a few races.

A mild curiosity spawned by a couple of teachers with too much time to waste. They created one of the most known figures in the universe.

Ian Chesterton _named him_. Ian had chosen the name that trillions would shiver upon hearing in the future. The Doctor.

And Barbara Wright, that wonderful woman. The person that taught him that humanity and strength aren't so far apart from each other. That the young and the old hold little differences when you look farther into it.

Susan would never have met David. She'd never have been able to live that wondrous, happy life.

The Doctor wouldn't save people. He'd be that same old man that wallowed around, ready to smash in the skull of a caveman. He'd never have evolved into an actual humorous old man, who knows how to deal with the young.

Today, he blunders around the universe, saving everyone he crosses paths with. Today, he's the most well-known soldier in history. Today, he's the Last of the Time Lords. The forgotten race of myth.

Today, he chooses his companions. He can't live without them. He tries, sometimes. He just gets angry when he travels alone for too long. An angry god.

He's let it get to him, really. he let's the companions grow on him, lets them rip their way into his hearts. When they leave, for whatever reason, it hurts just as much.

Remember when he was willing to throw Ian and Barbara into the Time Vortex? He does. He misses those times.

The times when he wasn't so hurt. The times when the Doctor could be happy.

He misses those days. The days without responsibility, other than Susan, of course.

He's not sure whether the universe would be happy if those teachers had something to do that day. If they hadn't followed their student to Foreman Junkyard. What would have happened if Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright hadn't broke into that blue police box?

There's no way of knowing.

Today, he's glad that they did.

* * *

**Junkyard:**

_(Part 2/2 of the Mild Curiosity in a Junkyard. Ian Chesterson's point of view. I decided to post it on the same chapter so you get more for your views. That's like actually earning something for wasting your time on my writing._

_It's 2 am. It's a school day. I'm so done with me today.)_

_It's cold._

That's the first thing he thinks. It's cold, and it's creepy. The first two things that the human mind processes. It's cold and he doesn't like it here.

There's no house here, no address. It's just an old junkyard.

She lied. It's a false address. There is nowhere to live.

It's funny. He can almost sense that that's wrong. Susan Foreman doesn't seem like one to lie.

Foreman? Isn't that the name of this junkyard? Did she lie about her last name as well? How much has she hidden from them? How many lies have been told?

There's a cold, unwelcoming blue police box that sits in the middle of the piles of garbage. It's clean compared to the surrounding area. Almost newly scrubbed.

As if someone takes care of a police box that has been thrown to the dogs.

Why would you throw out a police box, anyway?

He knocks on the door, instincts screaming at him to run. Run away and never look back, Ian. Take Barbara with you.

Bad things are to come if you don't go now.

And just like all humans do, he ignores those primitive instincts. They turn out to be correct in telling him to flee.

An old man steps out, limping along on his wooden crutch. He tells them to go away, why are they here?

He tells the old man to show him where Susan is.

At the refusal, they threaten to call the police. They're ignored, and the response has an almost humored tone.

They settle for breaking into the box, when they hear Susan's voice, trapped inside.

_It's- it's big._

Impossible. Physics has declared this impossible. A room, larger than the perimeter of its walls. It's completely impossible and completely illogical.

So, how is this possible?

It was supposed to be a normal question. Why is Susan so secretive about her grandfather? It was supposed to be a quick drive to see where one of their students lived.

They became heroes throughout time. They became kidnap victims (on about 47 different occasions, by his count). They became gods and servants. They saved entire races.

And it all started as a mild curiosity in a junkyard.

(_Review if you like reviewing)_


	36. Two

**Two:**

_(Hi. Uh, I have no bad jokes to tell you today. I also have no idea what I'm about to write. Also, I have to get up at 5:30 tomorrow. Why am I staying up to read scripts and writing this? I think there's a part of me that just wants to watch both me and the world burn._

_Help me. It's a problem.)_

There were two times that Susan Foreman heard one particular saying. Both times were the end of everything she'd ever known. Both times, she had to leave everything behind. Both times, everything left. And she found new beginnings.

The first time she heard it was the day after Omega's death reached the citizen's ears. People held their heads low, and bowed to the Seal of the Three when they walked past it.

Her grandfather, who's name has not been recorded and is known simply as 'the Other' in Time Lord mythology, is worried. Long ago he'd developed suspicions on what Rassilon was planning. Now, it seems, his worries were just.

"Susan, I'm sorry." The dark haired man places a hand on her shoulder. She notices how he refuses to meet her eyes.

"But, Grandfather, you can't! I won't let you!"

"Then you will be found and killed. I promise you, Susan, I will be back. Yes, I will be back. I'm not done with you, yet."

"But it's suicide!"

"Yes. That's exactly what it is. Sacrifice is required if you wish for rebirth,"

He hesitates, thinking over his words. "Susan, tell that to one of your friends. Convince them to inform Rassilon of this fact."

"Grandfather-"

"Trust me. This must happen." Susan watches him with pleading eyes.

"Explain something!"

"I cannot. For all we know, Rassilon is listening into this very conversation. I do not wish to see you hurt, Susan. You must believe me."

"I do! I just... I'm worried this might not work." The younger Gallifreyan says. The Other sighs, finally locking his gaze on hers.

"Do you trust me?"

"Yes!"

"Then let me do this. I shall be back, I swear."

"I don't believe you, Grandfather. Please stay." He sighs again. It's a noise that Susan's grown to hate. Bad things happen when he sighs.

"One day, I shall come back. Yes, I shall come back. Until then there must be no regrets, no tears, no anxieties. Just go forward in your own beliefs and prove to me that I am not mistaken in mine. Goodbye, Arkytior- goodbye, my dear."

There's a pause. A quiet lull. The only sounds are the footsteps of men that walk past them, shielding them from the Soldiers of Rassilon.

There are tears streaming down Susan's face. She sobs into his shoulder. He pats her back, in a very foreign show of affection. He's only ever seen the ship pilots doing that to each other. They likely picked it up on another planets.

There's something that's broken in Susan's heart. The Other only calls her that name, her true name, when there's nothing else to say.

They never speak again.

The next day, she goes into hiding. Three days later, she hears the news of the death of the Other. One year later, he shows up again, going by a different name.

Those years with him are the best of her young life.

Then, as it always turns out, the best days of her life end. She'll never admit that she's happy that he said those words again. She'll never know how her grandfather died and returned. She'll never admit that her life with David is better than any life she'd ever had.

In the end, she's happy that he repeated himself.

Once, it had made her cry.

Now, it made her smile.

Because he wouldn't lie. He'd come back.

He always will.

23 years later, the Time Lords come to her house, and take her back to Gallifrey to aid them in their war.

Those words repeat in her mind over and over in what seems to be her final moments.

He never came back.

He lied.

In the one moment it mattered, he couldn't come back. She'd die without ever seeing him again.

(_Review if you like.)_


	37. Saving

**Saving:**

I'm the hero of the story, don't need to be saved. You're the villain of this tale, don't need to be my rescuer.

You're the man I grew up with. The man I betrayed. The man I cursed with a problem none should be forced to face. Every horrid thing they've ever done to you is my fault. Koschei.

"One last time," You warn. Your voice is cold, pained, numb. Your eyes are wild.

"I told you to go. It's my fault," A stray tear streaks down my face. I don't wipe it away.

This is the last time I'll ever meet him.

"Why did you save me?"

"You're the good one. The sane one. The one that needs destroying." It's like you're repeating the words of another. A memorized novel. A story, already told. Have you been through something like this already?

"I'm not good."

"This is your reward for trying to save my first regeneration from Torvic Blyledge. I owe you nothing." This isn't you. This isn't how you act.

"Koschei, are you alright?" I try to stand. I wince as I fall. A stab of pain shoots through my injured leg. You don't move to help. You should have. You would have.

"That is not my name, Doctor. You know that. It has not been for quite a long time."

"How long has it been. For you, how long?"

"1,247 years." Is the quiet response. Your eyes dig into my own, seeming to read my very soul.

"That long…"

"For you it has been four years, I assume?"

"Y-yes. How did you get back? You should have gone 1,243 years into the future." It's impossible. It goes against everything I've learned in my life. The Lock of Time, centered around Gallifrey, should have prevented this from happening.

"I have a," You hesitate. There's a shrug, then. "Friend. She helped."

"You don't have friends outside of Gallifrey! None of us do!"

"1,243." It's almost like he blames me. Why? Koschei, what did I do to you? What did I cause? What have I created?

You smile. There's a spot of brown on your teeth. A rusted, reddish brown. I don't want to know what it is. I do.

Blood.

"A monster."

Impossible. We don't have a link open. You can't read my thoughts. Not unless we touch. No Time Lord could ever read another's thoughts if the other doesn't want them to.

"I'm no Time Lord. Not anymore."

"You're normal. Just like me. Just like any of us."

"You've been tricked. You're not normal, _Doctor_," As if the word is the most vile thing he's ever uttered. As if my name is the one word that the whole of the universe wishes to ban. As if I've done the worst deed that could ever be done. "I have seen you. An older version. You become so _weak_. So _pathetic_. I did my duty. I've ended your life. So why are they still pounding? I have done your duty. I have killed the Doctor. Stop beating." He pounds at his chest, and I can see something new.

The light of insanity dances through your eyes.

"Koschei-" I begin, only to be interrupted by the rage that erupts like a volcano.

"**Master!**" You collect yourself, and shake your head. "My name is the Master."

"What regeneration is this?" A pause. "Answer me!"

"16."

"That's impossible," I say. "13 is the limit. How did you-"

"My friend, she is very kind to me."

"How did you break the lock?"

"There is none left." It's quieter than the last few sentences. Your voice is softer. As if you're breaking the news of a parent's death to an orphan.

"What?"

"Doctor, I have saved you today. Remember this. Remember how I protected you. Remember how you refused to protect them."

And then you're gone. Faded away, just as you had appeared. The fire rages on behind me. The others have finally reached the scene. Someone helps me to my feet, and brings me back to the council to explain my presence in their private sector.

Four days later, I'm in a TARDIS.

Four days later, it's not so impossible for the Lock to be broken.

Five days later, I never call you Koschei again.

(_Review if you like to)_


	38. Alive

**Alive:**

All I've wanted, all my life, is to feel as if I wasn't a corpse. A living corpse that shrugs his way through life, head lowered towards the ground. I wished to feel as if I could bring great things. I wished for a bright future.

After all, what's the point of a man with no hope? Who can't bring anything to anyone?

There is no purpose for such a man. Even so, in every world one shows up. The man whose hearts beat, but don't work.

I am that man.

All my life, more than anything, I've wanted to feel alive. But I'll never be. I'm a lonely man, dragging himself for every step. Every blink is a nightmare. Every thought is a fire. Every step is torture. Every breath is pain.

And when I do die, she won't take me. Death doesn't even want me, not anymore. She's left me alive. It doesn't matter. Sometimes you don't need Death to die.

My friends, my friends are gone. Dead as their families. Dead as my world. Dead as my granddaughter, living death over and over.

Their sacrifices were for nothing. Their lives, risked for me. The point? I'll never know. All I know is they're gone. Their blood soaks my hands, as it always has. No matter how much time I spend washing them, it won't come off.

I've soaked them further. My own blood, eleven times. Ten different men who are crusting on my hands. Eleven different sets of memories, burned forever into my eyes. And ten different faces, lost to the hands of Death.

I have a feeling it'll be a quiet death this time. I have a feeling, it won't be fun. Then again, is death ever?

I was born screaming. May I go out in silence? Or do I go on screaming for the souls that I've wronged?

I met a man once. Kahler-Jex. He'd spoken of a religion in which every man must climb a mountain with the weight of everyone he'd wronged bearing down on their back. I would never finish that climb. I'd be crushed within a second. I'd be flattened on the pavement.

Still, such a fate is not punishment enough.

How many have I stolen from their lives and how many have been led to their graves? Too many. My friends, my companions, my assistants, my family, my world. Worlds that I had no claim to, lit by the fire I'd sparked. I have destroyed so much. Why should a man like me live a good life?

The universe has done me justice. It's agreed with my lack of life. And, although all I've wanted is not to feel so alone, or at least to feel alive, I feel this is what I was meant for. Every world has that one man that has to suffer. Maybe, maybe I'm just that man. Maybe I was born for this.

Maybe the universe isn't my toy.

Maybe I'm its.

_(Alright, this one I like. I think it's better to do shorter and to the point shots than longer and forgetting-what-I'm-doing shots. What do you think? [If you say longer, you'll have to wait about 60 shots until you get it. Yeah I've got a damn lot of shots ready to post.]_

_*Insert shameless request for reviews here*)_


	39. Future

**Future:**

_(Ok I just came up with the coolest, most painful idea ever to be thought up about the final scene of Doctor Who ever. Here it is. Grab a tissue.)_

The ground is cold against his back. The world is grey. Color fades, to be replaced by dull shades of black and grey. Then, the darkest black takes hold of the grey and suffocates it until the former is all that's left.

Memories pool in his mind's eye, covering the dark blanket that seems to cover his vision. There's Susan, standing in Foreman's Junkyard. There's Jamie, fleeing from a Dalek. There's Sarah, writing in her journal. There's Leela, stabbing someone in the back. There's Adric, standing in that lonely ship. There's Peri, gasping as his own hands tighten around her throat. There's Ace, beating an enemy with a baseball bat. There's Romana, screaming at him to go. There's Rose, hearing that fatal word 'Run.' There's Martha, stepping out those doors. There's Amy, saying her last goodbye.

All of his companions, back to haunt him. Back to drag him down with them into the silence. All of his lost friends, dead and gone. They've come back to lead him to them.

Even Koschei returns, holding a hand towards the old man. The sad smile on his face is the most prominent feature.

He's coming home, isn't he?

He can see the stars, burning on in the skies. He can see two more return to the left. Two new stars in the constellation of Kasterborous.

Maybe they'll forgive him.

It's so cold now. He can almost feel his blood freeze in his veins. But it doesn't matter. He can't bring himself to care about what will happen to him in a few moments.

He's coming home.

Patience smiles at him, waving him towards her. Beside her, one old friend, sane again.

Mortimus stands over him, nervously glancing around. Though his hearing is gone, he knows what the other Time Lord is saying. "_Can I touch him?_"

And he knows the answer too. "_No, not yet. Not until he's ready_."

But he is ready. He's excited, he's anxious. Grab hold of him, lift him up and carry him away. Bring him home, bring him to safety. Bring him to the place that time forgot.

In death, Gallifrey will return.

In death, all his friends will be with him.

In death, he'll be remembered as something other than 'Predator.'

Everyone he's ever loved is waiting for him. Everyone he's ever known is smiling. They're all happy, waiting, and _sane_.

Mortimus, Koschei, Rani, Jelpax, Borusa, Drax.

They're all normal again. They're not the mad psychopaths he's grown to hate. But the sane, troublesome kids they used to be.

In death, people can be truly happy.

His breath comes in short gasps. There's no one with him. Not for the last time. Everyone else is gone. But they're here. They're waiting for him to come to them. He can see them now.

They grow stronger, their images less faint. The world grows less real as the memories grow stronger. His friends have come back for him. Even when he couldn't for them.

Jack Harkness, no longer restricted to being just a face, but with a body.

Omega, no longer just a body, but with a face.

The Master, no longer the Champion of Death. Merely another under her.

The Brigadier, just like the day he'd first met him so many centuries ago.

They're all waiting for him. Waiting for him to close his eyes and go to sleep.

Maybe it's time.

His breathing lessens as each second passes, until he never takes another breath again. His hearts stop their endless pace, finally slowing to a stop. His eyes slip shut, as his friends welcome him again.

In his mind, a woman stands over him. She places a hand on his shoulder. Her champion is gone. Time to find another.

He takes a step back, screaming as the images flood into his mind. The protective barrier he's put around his thoughts are gone. Several pictures enter the minds of the nearby guards. No one steps forwards to help him.

He climbs to his feet, and tears his eyes away from the swirling mass before him. He turns away from it, trembling with fear.

His feet move on their own accord.

He's running. No one can catch him.

Tears slip down his face and burning sobs escape his throat. His agonized scream echoes through the walls of the Academy. No one comes to help him. No one can. He's running too fast.

He's seen it all. He's seen the pain, seen the suffering, seen the horror. He'll see it again.

When they finally drag him out from the grass he'd cried into for hours, they'd asked him what he'd chosen for his name.

"I-I-I'm… I'm the D-doctor."

And so, the future that those images promised became reality.


	40. I'm Here And I'm Not

Traumatized:

(I'm in a lighthearted mood tonight. This is the third /fourth?/ one I've done tonight. And I promise, the chapter title is misleading. A lot of my chapter titles are.)

Different people suffer different responses to very different situations. That's the greatest, most common piece of logic known to man. It's as common as knowing that you'll die one day.

Rory and the Doctor are prime examples of this. And how Amy grew to hate how they responded to their situations.

For the first week, Rory slept. When he woke up, he would just relax in the covers until he could sleep again. She didn't think it was humanly possible for someone to sleep this long.

She understood it. From the stress of the end of the world, to their wedding, to his (2,000?) years as a centurion. Anyone deserved to sleep for that.

Still, how long can you possibly sleep?

His second new habit, after he finally woke up, was touching everything. From the wall, to the food, to the fridge, to the floor. From a quick poke to a full stroke. He wouldn't stop laying his hand on everything on the ship.

Off of it was just as much a problem. He'd almost gotten them killed by poking a sacred flower on the red planet, Denovia. Apparently it's a crime that results in death and dismemberment. She almost killed him because of it.

Sadly, this was another excusable new habit. After all, being plastic for so many years has an effect. You likely can't feel anything through it. Amy accepted that, but as she told her new husband "Just do it on the TARDIS."

The third ensured the fact that she needed to stop being a kissogram when she got home, and needed to get a better paying job. Rory would not stop eating.

It's another should-have-been-expected trait that she can't really blame him for. Though, she does anyway.

Within a day, the TARDIS kitchen was empty of food, and Rory was standing in the middle of it. He was more excited than anyone Amy had seen in her life.

The Doctor had one setback that was just as annoying, if not more than, as Rory's new habits. It almost led to their deaths too many times to count.

He hated small spaces.

She didn't even know what sparked it, at first. When she asked Rory, he'd just shrugged, taking the last bite out of a bar of chocolate and stating how it was the best thing he'd ever tasted. Then,

"You weren't the only one in the Pandorica. At least you were..."

She never expected that sentence to be finished.

It was still annoying that, anytime she tried to drag him through the hallway to try to show him that no, Rory is _still_ asleep, he'd stop at the narrow corridors, pale as if he'd seen a demon, and force her to turn the other way.

She may love her boys, but she hates it when they're traumatized.

(Okay, maybe not so lighthearted. I just wrote heart lighted and thought it was a word. I need to go to sleep.)

**Here:**

To be home again for the first time in 800 years is as much a relief as it is a pain. This place that the Pandorica called home for thousands of years, and he did for 18.

That's the longest this body has ever stayed in one place.

He'd sat, in stone-cold silence against a stone-cold box for 18 years. By the 12th, he was certain he'd gone a little mad.

After 800 years above land again, he's happy to say that he's regained most of that lost sanity. He has only 1,200 years to lose it all again. Easy. Right?

He's not underground, of course. He can't drag the box back down. The ground must have shaken. New dirt fills the previously clear cave. It's not hollow anymore.

But here he is. The stones around him don't shine anymore. They never did. It doesn't matter. These stones are home. To him, that's more important than being clean.

For a man who's been without a home for 800 years, any place that he can call his is a gift from the gods.

He's spent too much time around Romans.

Why is that so strange? He, in a way, is one. He was created to be Roman. Just because he's a plastic man doesn't make him not a Roman.

_(A sample of his thoughts)_

_It doesn't matter, Rory. Let's keep quiet, Rory. Don't attract any wild bears, Rory. Are there wild bears here? No? Probably not. There are probably wolves, though. Don't attract any wild wolves, Rory._

He climbs atop the stone monument to Amy, and rolls over onto it. Plastic to stone.

He's never stopped marveling in the fact that he's plastic. He never will. Not even after his skin is skin once more. He'll always remember that feeling.

He's walked non-stop for three days. He still feels no relief at laying down.

There's no relief in anything anymore. All there is is the future. All there is is him, the Pandorica, and the corpse inside it.

_Don't call her a corpse, Rory. That's like saying she's dead. Which she's not._

He can't wait for the future. Only 1,200 years to it.

He can wait that long, right? He's waited 800 years already. What's another 1,200 to that?

(_Double update because of reasons.)_


	41. Laugh

**Laugh:**

Laughter. Raw, joyful, unabridged laughter. How long has it been since he's laughed like this? How long since he's known the feeling of being unable to stop it.

Months, years, decades.

Ever since the war. Ever since that feeling of loss, that feeling of emptiness that filled him (Ironic, isn't it? Emptiness filling a man) to the brim. Ever since any remnants of a smile was wiped from his face forever.

Or, maybe not.

The mask is dark. It hides the features of the young zombie beneath them. His army of gas masks follow behind, his loyal minions. A pack of wolves to their alpha.

"_Are you my mummy?_" The childish voice asks.

The laughter won't stop coming. He feels elated, he feels happy. For once he sees a way out of this. Everything will be fine.

He thought he'd learned a lesson about this. Being happy doesn't work.

The next thought inspires a speech that will be stated within the next 300 years.

Why doesn't happiness work? Because you'll be sad later? It doesn't matter.

You'll always be sad. At least you're happy now.

The worst is over. Maybe it's time to smile.

But no, it's been so long. He can smile out of sarcasm, anger, even sadness if the day is right. Today is not the day to be right. Today is the day to smile for real.

So, it breaks free. With it, a cackling, inescapable laugh. A laugh he hasn't let out in so long. Too long.

You're mummy's coming to you. She'll be with you again, little zombie. You'll be human again.

See these nano-genes? They'll bring you back. And no one has to die. For the first time since the war, there are no casualties.

This battle, human against gas mask, hasn't killed a single man. Instead, it brought one back from the dead.

Who had he been to call himself 'Doctor'? That broken shell of a man was no Doctor, not compared to the present. What murderer can be called Doctor?

No, he is. He's healed these men. In his mind, that's enough to earn his title.

Doctor.

He's the Doctor. No Doctor let's a patient die. And just this once, they won't.

Just this once, nobody gets hurt. Just this once, he's earned the right to be a good man.

He releases the nano-genes.

It works.

And on that night, maybe for the last time in his life, everybody lived.

(_Short but good. Though, this shot isn't over yet. Yay for kind-of-but-not twoshots!_)


	42. Laughter

**Laugh [Part 2]**

_("Oh yeah, Think that we can't do any better? We are always cute. You're just sometimes. Our stories are the cute ones. Only we can do them."_

_"Koschei, stop instigating or you'll find yourself in quite a bad spot. I apologize, writer of these 'shots'. Can you try to use us in the place of this 'Doctor?'_

_"Quiet, Monk. I'm trying to start a fight."_

_"I hate you so much.")_

The world is dull. Boring. Grey. As if the only colors it's artist had owned were different shades of the dull color. Even the grass seems lifeless, as it stands still in the wind.

"I'm, Uh, sorry about that..." there is one thought in his head, set on repeat.

_I'm going to kill you._

"You made me punch a dog!"

"It's not like you hurt him."

"He's three times my size!"

"Yeah, so he probably didn't feel it."

"He split my robes in half with one tooth."

"I'm sure you can bind it back together."

For once, Mortimus wasn't the one fighting. The second he'd heard 'giant' and 'dog' in the same sentence he made sure not to take part. It was the smartest decision he could have made.

Instead, Theta screams at his roommate, while waving his ragged robes. Cuts and bruises decorate his face, and there's blood staining the orange uniform.

That was the day that Theta Sigma learned to hate dogs.

A long and thin scar traces down his back. He's pretty sure it's still got shards of broken tooth and dog blood in it. How does a dog even bite hard enough to draw its own blood?

In the midst of their argument (And in Koschei's case, defending) they're stopped.

A series of six knocks attacks their door. They freeze. Koschei tosses Theta a fresh, clean set of robes.

Too late.

The door opens.

The subsequent laughter is enough to shake the entirety of the Academy.

It must have looked like a strange sight. One boy in his pants, shirtless holding torn robes in one hand with wild hair jotting out in every direction.

The other, with the same ragged hair and missing random pieces of his own clothing. It was a shame that the dog hadn't only decided to attack Theta. The scratches on Koschei's back had to have drawn attention.

Through his laughter, the intruder managed to breath a few words.

"Didn't know you had such kinks." and "I'll stay out next time."

Theta's blush is definitely not helping.

Despite their desperate explanations, nothing gets through to Jelpax. He falls to the ground, clutching his stomach.

"Oh Rassilon. I need a bypass system. This is just the best thing..." He never finished his sentence as his howling takes over again.

It's a good ten minutes before he quiets down. As he slips away, he mutters something that only Koschei can quite catch.

"No wonder you were screaming."

Inside, Koschei Oakdown dies a little that day.


	43. Pain

**Pain:**

_(What even is this?)_

There's a river of blood flowing down his face. There's a sea of bruises decorating his body. His hair is stained red, soon to be a rusted brown. His hands are raw from the useless punching he's been doing.

The man, no the creature, who stands over him smiles. It tears his heart out of his soul and tramples it.

He knows that smile.

The hand is back in his hair. The fingers curl around it, tightening as they pull him to his feet. He lets out a grunt of pain that he couldn't smother.

The eyes that are next to his own are cold. Unwelcoming. Joyless. Lonely. Cruel. Completely insane.

The voice stabs into him like a million knives. He knows that voice. He called this man out for who he is. He ruined his plans.

"I warned you. Don't call me that." At the last word his head is slammed against the cold metal. He almost expects the skin to peel off, sticking to it.

That metallic taste in his mouth is stronger. His tongue has a deep hole, directly in the middle of it, that gushes those thick globs of life that course through his veins.

"Like it... or not," he pants. "He's still... you. You're still... him."

The fingers leave his hair and he crumbles to the ground, lifeless. He pants for air, a feeble attempt to drag anything into his lungs.

"So, so pathetic. Weren't you supposed to be the stronger one? Or," The voice carves him until he's hollow. It won't (I) stop. (IE) "Was that a game?"

There's a boot on his face now, pressing down with all its weight. He rolls over in a feeble attempt to escape the pressure. It's a failed attempt.

"D-Do-" He curls in on himself as the other boot implants itself into the soft of his stomach.

"I said, you don't call me that!" Each word is delivered with a swift kick to his head. He can't find the energy to even try to escape them anymore. It makes it all too easy for his captor.

"I'm... sorry." He can barely breath in this position. He can barely breath in any position.

"What is my name?" The voice asks again. He wants to scream. He wants to run and escape and never look back. He wants to find his Doctor and never leave his side again, just so he'll be protected.

He wants to go to his TARDIS and curl up inside and just cry. This is too much.

He's overwhelmed.

It's funny. It only took 13 hours of torture to completely break the master of the art.

He sobs into the cold steel ground. This TARDIS is so metallic now. As cold as it's owner.

"It doesn't matter. Just give me the Matrix key, and I'll be off. Simple as that, and I'll let you go." The man that used to be his friend says.

"N-no."

"Shall we continue, then?"

No response.

A knife is torn out of his shoulder. He screams, a blood curdling yell. His vision is blurry through involuntary tears. More liquid clumps force their way out of his wounds. How much more before it's not enough?

"Alright. You c-could have asked... nicely,... you know." He says.

"Where?"

"My ship... Above the door."

The face is split by a cruel grin.

Then, he's granted the sweet release of unconsciousness.


	44. Friend?

**Friend?:**

_(Basically, I'm horrible. And I came up with this idea. My mind refuses to let it be in 3rd person, as I normally like to do. Hopefully this causes you emotional pain, which is the only reason someone should read these shots…_

_EDIT: Yeah, basically from here on I experimented with new writing styles so please forgive excessive stupidity and bad styles on my part.)_

"Don't know what I'd be without that noise."

You'd be Koschei. You'd be my best friend. You'd be the best man I'd ever known. You'd be the same mischievous devil I've come to love. You'd be travelling with me.

I wouldn't have been alone for all these years. Many races would still be in existence. The humans would have been threatened so much less. You'd be Koschei.

You'd never have been the Master.

We'd have shown Borusa why he shouldn't mess with the two main rebels of the Broken Generation. We'd never have let Rassilon escape that stone prison, in the first place.

Mortimus wouldn't have gone insane. The Meddling Monk would never have existed.

Maybe we'd have kept Ushas in check, too. Maybe she wouldn't have become that sociopathic scientist, the Rani. She'd still be telling us we're idiots, but she'd be sane.

You'd have made me kill those Daleks. We could have stopped them, you and I.

They'd never have started the Time War. We'd have been heroes. The men who stopped the worst parallel universe from ever occurring.

This universe would never have existed.

Theta Sigma Lungbarrow and Koschei Oakdown. The Saviors of Gallifrey.

We'd have become Lord Presidents.

Together, we could have made sure that Millenia wasn't captured by the Celestial Toymaker.

We could have saved Jelpax from the Nightmare Child. We could have protected him from it, and we didn't. We never tried. We never could.

We'd have been the first respected renegades in history. The renegades that proved that not all travelers are evil.

Wouldn't it have been so much fun to travel together? So much less painful than apart?

I'd have done a better job. I'd never let you get hurt. You'd never have exceeded the regeneration limit.

And yeah, maybe I'd still have to live with a few hundred years of that horrible goatee you've been obsessed with since your 3rd incarnation. I kind of miss it.

I really do.

I miss you.

I miss you so much, Koschei.

Can you come back?

I'm different now, and so are you. How different would we have been if we'd stuck together? Would you have been the hero of the story? Would I have been the villain?

I'd sacrifice it. I'd sacrifice everything. For you, Koschei. I'd give my sanity for you to have yours. If I could, I would hand over those last precious strands remaining. I wish you'd come back. I wish you'd be Koschei Oakdown. Not the mad man you are today.

If only for your happiness.

We'd be a pair, huh? While we travel through the universe?

The Boy Who Dealed With Death.

And the Boy Who Death Claimed.

The perfect mix.

Looking back, I'd have traded myself in your place. You'd have been a much better hero. You always were better.

Master, you ask who you would be without those drums. Well, what about me?

"Who would I be without you?"

_(Did not mean for that, oh god. It's so damn shippy. I wrote it as friends, holy hell. I see how most writers feel.)_


	45. Peace

**Peace:**

It seems to matter so much less when he knows the outcome. The impact is so much less important, when it's already happened. A world that existed a thousand years ago still lacks importance.

The world that ended with a rescue, but could never be saved.

Grey is dead. His brother. The last of his family. Grey is gone. And he, the last link to the life he had lived before the moment he'd found such a life was only finite. The life after, though, that was forever.

Burning, endless burning. Screaming that lasted hours, days, weeks. Horror and pain, joined together by fire. Oh, the burning. Grey skies, forever imprinted in his minds eyes. The smell of searing flesh on a Sunday morn'. The reek of rotting skin.

An endless pain, lasting forever. All he'd ever wished is to drift off into the dark black void, into nothingness. All he'd ever dreamed is of the perilous journey from fire to home.

All fails to even compare with the blank nothingness now.

He drifts through the black, the endless nothing. Here, his thoughts can run wild. Here, his words are forever ignored. Here, he doesn't matter. How he wants to stay here.

It's longer than usual. Is this permanent? Will he forever float away, never to be remembered, never to be forgotten? For once, is this punishment permanent?

The bomb has gone. His world, destroyed. His brother, disintegrated. He can do nothing. Here, all he can do is float. Float on forever. Ignore your pain.

Focus on the bleak.

If he can appreciate anything of his curse, this is it. The ability to disappear into this quiet world of the empty. The land of the cursed.

Sometimes it feels as if he was born to be here.

When the blessed need peace, they receive it in a form. A form that lies and says it is permanent.

When he needs peace, it is granted. All it takes is a single bullet.

It's never permanent. Never meant to be. Just as his home, his world, failed to be, it is not everlasting. Everything dies and everything ends.

Everything but him. A man born of a curse without origin. A man who lives on borrowed time.

Time that will be lent for all eternity.

His hair, it grows grey as the years progress. In a thousand years, a million, what will he be? A stain on the ground? Forced to live the life of liquid for eternity?

His mind, it grows old and weary. What shall he become? A man worthy of the word insane?

He'll never die. That much is obvious. It's not permanent today. It never will be.

He's lost his memory of the stones on the ground. He's lost interest of the clouds in the sky, the rays of the sun. The dirt on the pavement are unimportant.

A man, set to die in a day, will remember every detail.

A man, set to live forever, will forget every one.

He can remember pain and death, on repeat for a millennia. He remembers breathing, choking, the end to breathing. Breathing, choking, the end to breathing. A cycle of pain and death and rebirth.

The thought that this will continue on until his world burns.

It will. One day. He won't witness it. He'll escape first. The flames will luck his back on the day he leaves. They call him, scream his name. Their dark eyes will gaze into his soul on that dark day. His mind will break.

That story is for another time. A time far in his future. A time he'll wish never happened.

There's a thought, ringing in his head as it always has.

"You could have stopped this."

Five words. Directed to none. Dedicated to many.

Now, he's asleep, and the darkness wants to keep hold of him. The first time anything has ever wanted to keep him. He doesn't want to wake up.

Wake, and the pain will arrive. Wake, and the memories claim you. Wake, and the only pain won't just be physical.

It's calling him. The faint light of reality, repeating his name on and on.

He doesn't want to go.

He grasps at the cloth of darkness that has kept him warm for so long. He screams for help, help him stay. The anchor around his ankle has lifted. He is held down, no longer.

He squeezes his eyes shut, awaiting the fury of life. Missing the peace of death.

Is there a way? A way to stay asleep?

_(This is very odd. Very, very odd. I'm not sure I understand it much. It was originally going to be a Doctor story. But no, my mind says, you will not have it easy. Just pm me if you don't understand. I'll explain it.)_


	46. Star

**Star:**

_(It's not canon in this story, but I read my last shot over to check something, and I don't know what's wrong with me. I have an ship in this story that I didn't mean to exist. I don't even know anymore._

_This takes place directly after the brutal death of Torvic, while Death is still attempting to get Theta to sell his soul..)_

The stars paint the sky an unnatural shade of white. The color of Torvic's face as-

No, Theta. This is a good moment. Don't focus on that. Focus on the good. The stars are the only ones that know.

No, that's not exactly true. Koschei knows. But why would his best friend (Who's already accidentally almost lit the entire world on fire) tell anyone?

Koschei's not honest enough to tell anyone.

He's glad Mortimus wasn't there. If he was, they'd already be being hauled out of the Academy. Torvic's house would be in mourning.

Instead, they called him a renegade and wished him dead.

They got their wish.

The Hermit doesn't even know. The man who seems to know everything doesn't know this. It's a relief. He's not sure that anyone could approve this. This, this _murder_.

"Thete, are you alright?" Koschei's voice, soft and calm, asks.

"I'm fine." So ends their discussion.

So Koschei's worry takes hold.

Red blades of grass curl under his weight. They'll leave an indent when he stands. Just like the indent of Torvic in the grass by the lake. The grass that they'd flattened themselves to hide the proof.

Red grass, red. Red, almost the color of their blood. Red, the red that blocks blood. Oh god, he's sitting in blood. Torvic's blood.

He almost jumps to his feet, ready to run from the horrible blood-soaked grasses, when he remembers Koschei.

All of a sudden, it's just grass again. No blood, no guts, no pain. Just grass.

He closes his eyes, trying to dispel his fear. He can see that limp body, forever carved into his retinas.

A quiet whisper. A raspy growl. The sound of wind. A deep cackle. An urging. It's just the wind. He believes that.

He thought this would be a reprieve. A nice, quiet night, stargazing with his best friend lying next to him.

Instead, his nightmares have breached the thin barriers that keep apart dream and reality.

"Thete," Koschei's worried. Koschei Oakdown is worried about Theta Sigma. He wonders what he must look like on the outside, for someone who's gone through the exact same ordeal to try and comfort him like this. "He's free."

They don't mention it again.

That night, Theta Sigma makes a deal with Death.

That night, Koschei Oakdown was cursed for eternity.


	47. Face

**Face:**

_(This is actually a pretty good one. I think I got his panic attack perfectly. Both of them. What do you think?)_

He's screaming at it, he's kicking it. He's punching it. It's a miracle that the wood hasn't shattered under the blows. His cries echo through the alleyway, carrying to the ears of everyone within a mile radius.

In a few minutes, the police will probably arrest him for being a public menace.

He doesn't understand the police anyway. Or police boxes for that matter.

When one of his hands breaks, he punches with the other. And when that one joins the first, he's just kicking it, and ramming into it with his shoulder. Then, when he doesn't care anymore, he's beating it with bloody arms that refuse to give in to the pain that envelopes them.

This damn box didn't save him. This damn box couldn't save any of them. This damn box never shows up when he needs it.

Blue isn't such a welcoming color, anymore. Blue is the color of what could have been, had it come to him. Blue is pain and loss now. Just like this damn box.

When his screaming finally eases, and his hands stop throbbing, the door finally opens. A black silhouette paints the wall. It's not the man he knows.

The silhouette requests his help.

He refuses.

The silhouette states it's name.

He refuses.

There's a sword in his skull four seconds later. A Silurian stands above him. With the last bit of energy left in his body, he's able to focus on understanding it's words.

"It's better this way."

* * *

The Monks don't die so easily. They don't have the heads that he's been trained to shoot. They have laser swords (Why can't their side have those? The bad guys always get the cool things) that cut through his fighters as if they were made of butter.

The Silurians are the first to die. An ambush of the headless men. Green blood litters the ground, making it seem almost like a green sky that sits on the ground.

He's died three times. He's killed one of the Monks. He's lost his touch.

There's only one reason he's fighting. There's only one reason he's going on.

He's imagining these Monks as the monster. The 456 that stole everything from him. To think his therapist used to call his way of managing emotion "Unhealthy". It's helping now.

Yes, it may be a bit aggressive. It doesn't matter. When you've lived as long as he has, you're allowed to be a bit cruel.

The New Doctor bangs against the door, screaming "Amy!"

Just as he starts, so does the prisoner, as her baby turns to liquid in her arms. The jelly baby, lost in war.

Just another casualty. Another lost child. Never to be seen again.

Why are the children always the ones who are targeted? Need to feel better? Use the children as a drug! Need to get a message to your allies in the middle of a battle? Send a child! Need to kidnap someone? Do it to the child!

The Roman eyes the prisoner with worried eyes, before glancing back to the Monks. He fires another shot, and one of the freaks goes down.

Oh, who's he to call someone a freak?

He's not letting another suffer alone, in pain and anguish.

"Go."

The Roman looks up in surprise, nods to him and turns back to the prisoner.

He shoots another Monk. It goes down in a river of blood.

The New One is screaming another name now. He's become so accustomed to being called by his alias he's almost forgotten that name. It takes him a moment to remember that it's his own.

When he realizes that it was a warning, he's too late. He sees a blade of metal sticking out of the front of his neck. He can't move it. He's locked into place.

Then, he's on the ground. He's rolling on the dirty ground. Red mixes with green. Human head with Silurian. He's looking up at his body, witnesses it crumple to the ground.

It makes sense, when you think of it. He has to exist. His mind maybe. His body isn't important. Now, devoid of its wrong, it crumples to the ground. It's as if he's watching his first death repeat itself, from a new angle.

His blood doesn't pump anymore. He doesn't have a heart. Air doesn't enter his lungs. He doesn't have lungs.

The New One stands, in absolute shock, in the newly-opened door.

Then, he's by his side. He picks up the _severed head _that used to be a Time Agent.

Then, it hits him. He's not dead. He's not dead, and he's wrong. He's a fixed point. And he's wrong, and now he's stuck. Why won't he die? Oh god, he'll always be stuck like this.

He'll never have sex with anyone again. He'll never run again. He can't run Torchwood. He can't eat again. He can't even breath anymore.

He's dead, but he's not. He'll be a head _forever_. No, please no. Don't force this fate on him!

"I'm sorry, Jack." No! There's nothing to be sorry for! This isn't happening!

He's not a head. You're a bloody idiot who didn't save them, and he's not a head. Everything is normal, absolutely normal.

And he's fine with normal. He was wrong. Bring back normal. Please.

Just, bring him back. Reattach him. Wake him up and tell him this has all been a dream.

Ianto will stand over him, and Owen will be telling him he's an idiot. Tosh will be wondering why he was asleep, he's never asleep. He'll ask if he has a body. Rhys will ask what kind of bloody question that is.

He's not a head.

Oh god, he's a head!

He's a head, and he'll be a head forever.

And suddenly, the Face of Boe has never been a more perfect name.


	48. Answer

**Answer:**

_(I'm literally lost. No ideas. So here's a random AUish shot /Because I don't have internet so no transcript. Thanks truck that broke the electricity/ about the Doc being in pain in the Big Bang after that Dalek shoots him, because I'm sadistic and it's fun to hurt you guys on an emotional level._

_I should have told you before. I'm evil. You've probably already guessed it.)_

There's a shot. A blast that goes undetectable to the human eye. Rory panics for a second. He didn't realize how much time had passed.

Seven minutes.

A skeleton flashes, and for the first time he sees the differences between Time Lord and human. He doesn't appreciate it at the time.

There's a horrid smell of burning flesh that circulates in the room. There's a quiet cry, almost like a whimper, halfway to a scream. Smoke rises from his body, reaching the ceiling during its short period of existence.

He can see the man before him collapse, just as his skin flashes back into existence. He and River catch him, and they drag his limp body behind a wall.

Limp because he can't hold himself up. He's not even been granted the pleasures of unconsciousness. The release of death.

No, stop it. He's not dying. Not here, not today.

"No" River whispers, as Rory positions himself in front of the Dalek that just shot his friend.

In the future, he can sense that there will be a dead Dalek In this building.

"Systems rebooting." He can hear the metallic voice of that machine (is it even a machine? He's never even seen one of these things. Why is it so intent on killing them?). If it could, it almost seems like that monotonous voice contains an emotion.

The thing is smug.

His fingers drop down again, and he grabs his wrist and aims the laser that he's grown so used to in the past 2,000 years. He fires. The Dalek powers back down in a useless attempt to recharge it's shields.

The Doctor's still lying on the ground. Rory can hear the raspy, forced sounds of his breathing from across the room.

He's sure that the Dalek is basking in that sound. It already seems psychopathic enough to kill them for no reason. Why wouldn't it be proud?

He hears River try to help the Doctor, telling him to help her help him. He would laugh, if it was the proper situation. He's only been with the Doctor for about five days (And 2,000 years of knowing him) and he already knows that the Doctor doesn't accept help. That's as uncharacteristic as this thing giving them a cup of tea on its plunger.

There's a flash and blue light dances around the room. He's wished to see that light for 2,000 years.

The universe hates him, doesn't it? Why else would it mock him as it does?

Because the Doctor, as Amy explains to River, just died seven minutes ago.

He hates time travel too, sometimes.

River tells him to go, find the Doctor. Amy asks where she's going.

They're told to go. They do.

* * *

There's a question.

"What about the Dalek?"

There's an answer.

"It died."

This is the first time in Rory Williams' life that he was given joy from that answer.

_(SPOILERS FOR THE 2013 CHRISTMAS SPECIAL_

_I'm planning on doing a chapter about Matt Smith's announcement that he's leaving..So if you're still reading this [lets be honest does anyone not ignore a spoiler announcement?] and don't want to read anything about his leaving [trust me, this is serious, i have a friend who has been crying for an hour] skip the next chapter._

_Hopefully 12 will be an awesome Doctor. He probably will, if the first eleven have been any proof)_


	49. Trenzalore

**Trenzalore:**

Bullets, lasers, concentrated radiation. They all whiz past him at a thousand miles per hour. None of them make direct contact. None of them come within ten feet of him.

One side is his own. None of them would fire near him if not absolutely necessary. The other was given direct orders not to harm him. That was the job of their leader, who he'd yet to have the privilege to meet.

Jenny's long dead. A bullet to the lung. She was lucky. It's a much faster death than some of the weapons here.

Vastra is already half-dead from grief. She's been letting out her anger through fighting. Mounds of soldiers go against her. Both she and Strax are able to hold them back.

Jack Harkness is using the same method. He's fresh, raw from the wounds of what he only referred to as the days of the 456. The Doctor would never know what happened then. He's left when he found that Torchwood was almost done with stopping it. Apparently, he was wrong.

Jack has died 42 times in this battle alone. He had to admit, whoever had hired Kovarian had the ability to produce a massive army in a short time. Four hours after he'd reached the field, the battle had begun.

He hesitates, just for a second at the hatch to the ship that Madame Kovarian's army had arrived in. What he is about to do could wipe out all life on this world.

The screwdriver glows green and the lock on the door turns. He pockets the device and walks into the ship.

There are no guards, no extra men doing whatever it is that soldiers do on their off time (he hasn't stayed with soldiers for an extended period of time since his third incarnation and UNIT didn't really count, as he was sure that they never had off time. They just wandered around their entire lives trying and sometimes failing to stop alien threats).

It makes sense, in hindsight. They'd need every soldier for the battle.

The battle. In some ways it was worse than Amy's Rescue. In others, it was the same. Just guns and death.

But, isn't that what war always is in the end?

He can still hear some screaming in the distance, but the ship itself is quiet.

It makes it easier. He can hear footsteps if anyone comes onboard.

It makes it harder. They can hear his.

He wanders to the engine room of the space craft. Wires run from every direction. They trace the walls and the floors and every crack on the ceiling.

There's not a square inch of wall that isn't covered with them.

"Focus, Doctor. Big metal engine." He reminds himself. No one's coming. It doesn't matter. At this point, no one could stop him. Not even with a bullet in each of his hearts.

The sonic is out again, getting rid of one last lock. He might as well throw it away now. It'll be destroyed in a few seconds anyway.

In the oddest moment, he finds himself being sentimental. He tucks it away into his coat pocket. The bigger-on-the-inside one. He hopes that'll keep it safe.

His bow-tie goes next. This face might be lost, but his possessions didn't have to be.

* * *

Another of those stupid pieces of scum hit the ground. They're so weak. It's unbelievable how easy it is to annihilate them. A single shot of his gun and they're gone. Even their armor is flimsy bits of cloth strung together like a second layer of skin. They're weak, so insanely pathetic.

Strax is almost lost in the excitement on the battle. The only thing that keeps him from going on a rampage is the Doctor's warning. Get Amy, Rory, Vastra, and Jack back home in time.

That can wait. For now, the battle is all he knows.

His internal (superior to the human kind) clock ticks down to the fifteen minute mark. Twenty minutes, forty seconds before the leveling of the planet.

Sixteen minutes, twelve seconds.

He should start moving.

He retracts the armor off of his right hand, revealing the vortex manipulator that had been restricting his movement throughout the fight. It was too big for his arm.

He types the coordinates, as the Doctor had shown him and grabs the arm of Jenny (apparently she just _had_ to be buried on Earth) and presses the last button.

He's back to the fight within a second. He repeats the process, returning a worried Centurion and Swordsman (humans have incredibly odd names) to 1938. An angered Vastra to Victorian times, and a Captain Jack (the stupid thing flirted with him) to the 51st century.

He clicked another combination of numbers and was at the battle field once more.

Sixteen minutes, seventeen seconds in the future. His hand grabs a too-still-form (the only creature there) and he returns to what the blasted machine calls "home".

* * *

_A Minute Before_

The Doctor picks apart pieces of the engine, tearing away to get to the heart of it.

A few seconds later, he's there. A mess of wires that looks just as the others, but color-coded. They were able to build a ship to carry an army through space and they needed color-coded wires. He would have pointed that out if anyone was with him.

He grabs the blue one and tunes into that clock in his mind.

Ten seconds.

He puts the other hand on one side and pulls until it snaps into two pieces.

It sparks.

The spark catches.

It finds the oil that he'd been planting for the past four hours.

It explodes.

The world goes black instantly.

* * *

He blinks his eyes open. They're heavier than they usually are. A few strands of hair fall onto his face. He's used to that. What he's not used to us them being a completely different color.

"I'm forgetting something." He mutters. Of course he is! The reason his voice is completely different.

Oh. The ship. The battle. The explosion.

He must have died. He expected that. Though, he was supposed to stay dead. There was a 99% chance. He'd given only three seconds thought to surviving. And that was to put a bow-tie and a screwdriver into his pocket. Which, by the way, is now as burnt away as the rest of his jacket.

At least the bow tie is gone. How did he ever think that looked cool?


	50. Screaming

**Screams:**

_(I'm experimenting with different writing styles, so don't be surprised if it drastically changes between drabbles. You know what? These aren't even drabbles anymore. Let's call them Shots. Because they're not even one-shots. Just Shots._

_I've been toying with this idea for so long. I'm glad I've finally pulled it off.)_

It's new for her. For the first few weeks, it was hard to get to sleep.

The room was too bright. Then it was too dark. The bed felt odd. Rory, move your leg. The door is in a bad position. Why isn't the floor vibrating?

Imagine being on vacation for a year, and then going back home. Everything there ends up being home, and here is somewhere else. That's how it feels.

Even Rory's Latin sleep-talking couldn't even numb her until her eyes could slip shut for the next eight hours.

It's strange. On the TARDIS, every night she'd hear footsteps in the control room, explosions, sparks of electricity. It became a lullaby to put her to sleep.

Everything is so empty without it.

And some days, she'd hear the faint echoes of screaming in the hallways. She never did find the source of those screams.

She had a theory.

And, now, she even feels as if that's missing. She's grown used to the unknown screams, just as she had with everything on that ship.

She doesn't think Rory ever noticed. He was always asleep.

The screaming, it always lasted for maybe one to three hours. Then, as abruptly as it started, it would stop. It wouldn't reappear for a week.

Every time, she'd ask the Doctor if he heard it. He'd never answer.

Is it sad if, in a way, she misses that sound too?

She doesn't like it, don't get her wrong. It's horrible and terrifying, and she wishes no one should be forced to face something that they could scream so loud that she can hear it through what she thought was _soundproof walls_.

She investigated once. All she found was an empty control room, and a book on the Doctor's chair.

The next morning, he'd looked terrible.

It only added more proof to her theory. By the time she left, she was almost sure of it.

Every time she heard it, she'd be sure to comfort the Time Lord. He'd never respond to it.

He never was good at responding to things of that topic. Caring, friendship, family, the past. Any mention of such things, and he wouldn't speak, wouldn't respond. His face would become blank, and his eyes would become empty. As if that question had killed something deep inside him.

She knows a Time Lord can regenerate. She had to know. He'd explained it well after Mels (River?) died. She asked him about how it feels.

"It doesn't feel like anything. You die and another person walks away."

She tried to force him to elaborate. It didn't work.

"Have you ever met one of your last regenerations?" She'd asked.

"In this face? No. The last one, though, he'd kill me."

"Why?" He doesn't respond.

She wonders if that last face contributes to the screams. She's sure it does.

She misses that old (young) man in the bowtie. She misses the ship. She misses the planets. And god help her, she misses them too.

* * *

After she left the TARDIS, she joined the others in his nightmares. The scream was louder that night.

_(You choose if it was Impossible Astronaut, TATM, or God Complex.)_


	51. Back: Part 1

**Back: Part 1**

_(There are about 3 members of the Deca that I don't constantly use who aren't dead or insane. I think it's getting to the point where I may have to use fake names for Time Lords. Damn dead people.)_

There's a blinding panic. There's a moment of stillness. There are a million questions ringing through her head. The most pronounced:

"Why did you call me?"

The answer is simple.

"There's a war. You fought beside the Doctor, didn't you? In his early days, you were there."

The man's touch is gentle. The hand on her shoulder squeezes it gently. A sign of "You are not alone. I fear as well. Gallifrey is not safe," He paused as if regretting the very words he was forced to say. "We need you."

Her planet, the place she grew up in. The place she should have died in.

"Rassilon requested you himself."

"He's dead. They all told me so. He can't be alive!"

"He has been resurrected from the stones that held him. The great Lord President Rassilon has returned. He requests that you return as well, Susan." He doesn't say it right. There's only one man who can properly say her name and they're telling her to leave him behind to go back to fight a war for a planet that she disowned.

"I can't! I have to stay with David."

"We will ensure that when we win the war, your companion will have no idea you left."

"You can't just manipulate his mind."

"I would never allow such a thing to happen. You shall be brought back a second after you leave."

"What if we can't get back?"

"Unlike your 'Grandfather,'" He scoffs at the title, as if it's the most absurd thing he's ever heard. "I have absolute control over my ship. I passed all my classes."

What if she doesn't come back? In war, she may die. She has a life here that she never could have had on Gallifrey. She can't just throw that away.

"Why me? There are much more capable people. Why do you need me?" She asks. The Time Lord shakes his head.

"Four reasons. One, you are a companion of the Doctor. They are all seasoned warriors by our studies of the woman Leela. Two, you are a renegade. We need such people to lead us into battle. I hate to say it, but your kind have a strength that we do not possess. A knowledge we will never have."

"That's because you sit in a chair all day and debate what you're eating for dinner instead of seeing the universe. There's so much out there left to see that you just haven't."

"Three," He continues as if she hadn't spoken. "Rassilon knows you personally. He says you are well learned at stealth. You hid from him for over a year. We can use that to our advantage. And four, you fought the original Dalek race in the beginning. You may know their weaknesses."

"You're fighting the Daleks?"

"Yes, we are. And they are far stronger than when you knew them, but it can still be helpful to know former weaknesses. Shields can only protect so much."

"Will Grandfather be there?" She asks.

"The Doctor? He is one of our generals. Of course he is there."

Five minutes and ten million years later, she's in a TARDIS, on Gallifreyan soil.

One minute later, the TARDIS she's standing inside explodes.

_(So, 16 days late. I would come up with an excuse, but it was literally just me thinking, without checking, that I updated this three days ago. But no. I am 16 days late. This is why I shouldn't be trusted to do things._

_EDIT: I had a part 2 for this one, but it sucked so I'm going to rewrite it. I'll post it after I write it [which will take a while because I have a major case of writers block.] I'm going to post the next few stories, so you'll be on a cliffhanger for a bit. Sorry.)_


	52. Monk

**Monk:**

The scream echoes through the room, louder than any he's ever heard. Theta can't look away, eyes locked on the tear in time and space. Then, he runs.

Mortimus tries to stop him, but the man doesn't halt. That panicked expression won't look away from the door. He doesn't even see the boy react. There's a loud whispering across the room that doesn't end until Borusa throws a chair at the crowd.

"Thank you," He says when they finally quiet. The girl who got hit with the chair groans. He ignores her. "Next is Nintrus."

"Rextroa."

"Millenia."

A whisper. "He's dead."

"Uh, nevermind. Ushas."

And apparently Borusa Oakdown doesn't know pity, because the next name was the worst that could have been chosen.

"Mortimus."

All eyes were locked on him. There was snickering. Muttered "He'll run"'s.

Laughter. Even the guards couldn't stop it if they tried. A few of them joined in.

Everyone seems to have forgotten the mad words of the mad prophet that used to be (He's certain he's not anymore) his friend.

"Mortimus? Damn Monk'll go nuts!" Someone, probably Remund says.

"He shouldn't even be here. He'll go just like Theta Sigma. Stark mad!" Someone else calls out.

"We'll see." Borusa says, simply. He waves a hand towards the void. He makes no move to quiet the crowd. He doesn't grab another chair. Still, when he finally takes a step towards one, the girl with the swollen head winces.

"Come along, Mortimus."

He steps forward.

"Repeat after me," Borusa states, reading from a scroll that usually collects dust in his office. It's odd to see it so close to him. "I, Mortimus Redlooms, swear to the great Rassilon,"

"I, Mortimus Redlooms, swear to the great Rassilon,"

"Omega and the One Without a Name,"

"Omega and the One Without a Name,"

"That I will never interfere with the life of an off-worlder,"

"That I will never interfere with the life of an off-worlder,"

"On pain of death."

He hesitates. "On pain of death."

"You may now look into the Untempered Schism." Borusa's tone doesn't make it any more of a lighter prospect.

"You may now look-"

"You can stop repeating now." More snickering. Someone bursts out into a great fit off laughter.

It wasn't that funny.

He turns his head.

* * *

Color. Color everywhere. In every place. Red, blue, black, white, yellow, orange, grey, purple, every color imaginable. And some that aren't.

There's voices.

"That's it, you're a time meddler!"

"The Monk, now was he caught?"

"The Monk, he's insane."

"Poor Mortimus, lost his mind."

"You took up an oath."

"No, Monk, you will not leave. If we die, we die together."

"Renegade or not, you are a Time Lord! I don't care if you are of lower class now. You are a Time Lord! You will fight with us and die or against us and die."

He hears a voice that sounds oh-so familiar. He'll hear it again a million times when he grows old.

"That's the first I've been called one of you in 5,456 years. I am not a Time Lord. I am, however, a renegade. If I'm only equal to you when I'm needed, it doesn't make me one. I haven't been called a Time Lord in so long. None of us have. And you can't call us that anymore. You can't judge us by your laws when we're not the same species. Here's my answer: I won't fight. So sod off." He knows that voice. Did know. Will know. Who's is it?

There's a sigh.

"If that's your answer..." The doors to a TARDIS open up. He sees the colors merge until he can see a silhouette slip out of a Mark 3 TARDIS. It dematerializes. The silhouette is left in a place without air. The colors fade.

* * *

It feels like he's pulling out of a pool. The memories cling to him, refusing to fade out of existance like those endless colors that decorate the TIme Vortex.

_He's seen it, it's horrible. End it, please._

"Monk," The memories whisper. "Time to die, Monk."

"Have you decided upon a name, Mortimus?" Borusa asks, eyes alight with pride. The boy didn't run. He didn't scream. He didn't even curl up in a ball on the ground to sob. Even Koschei couldn't do that.

"You will call me," The memories of those words scream louder and louder and (Shut up!) he wants to claw at his head (Stop!) to rip them out.

"You're weak. Just like your namesake. All you do is sit around and talk. You never even attempt to do anything. You won't even fight!" A voice, and he doesn't know that voice (and yet he feels that he was programmed to), says.

"The Monk." Mortimus, or rather the Monk, states.

Laughter meets his words. They always laugh. He wants to hear their names. They'll probably be even worse. One of them might even call themselves the Janitor, he's betting.

The laughter will end, soon hopefully.

He hears a scream, a voice that's so familiar, that he's never heard before. Somehow he knows exactly what it is.

"Doctor!" An agonized, horrified yell that cut through the dying visions. It's just a false memory, just as fake as the others. He tries to convince himself of that. (He can't. It's too real.)

He wants to scream, to run, to die to escape that. But he can't die yet. Because he's just heard his own last words, in another man's voice. It's the most terrifying thing he's ever known. He turns and walks away from them.

* * *

He can hear a scream as he's leaving the room. Yes, he left early. He couldn't bring himself to stay another second. He had to find someplace to curl up and die.

_No, he won't die there. He dies somewhere-_

"Stop it!" He mutters, and he's certain one of the guards gives him a pitying look.

"He's lost it." The man says to his co-worker, and the co-worker nods to the man, and he's not crazy! They're wrong!

"Or maybe it's that one that has." The co-worker says. The Monk turns, to find a very angry-looking Koschei standing on the pedestal glaring at Theta. He would question why he didn't hear the yelling before, but he couldn't bring himself to care. Knowing the exact circumstances of your death will do that to you. Everything after that knowledge is made apparent becomes worthless. There's nothing that can change that fate so why try? What's the point?

"He goes by the name of Doctor. And he is in this room." Koschei yells. The Monk freezes, feeling both hearts freeze in his chest. Doctor. That name, that man, he knew him! He was certain of it. The man who'd left him to die. The very man who may well kill him.

He'd stop the Doctor before he could. He would rewrite time. He never will. Time can be rewritten.

And maybe he shouldn't have graduated then, because he didn't understand one of the main laws of time.

Time can be rewritten. Unless, it has already been lived.

(These_ were all supposed to be cute and funny, mostly this one._

_The trilogy of shots is done. This one began before 'Master' and ends in the beginning of 'Doctor'. The original plan was 'Master', then 'Monk', then 'Doctor'. But I'm completely disorganized.)_


	53. Master

**Master:**

"Hey, Kosch! What are you doing here? I thought you wanted to get out of here as much as I do! C'mon, Borusa's looking all over for you." The words are shot out in less than ten seconds. A minute later, he partially understands the jumbled words.

"Relax, Thete," His voice is much calmer than his friend's. "We're not late. Besides, why would you want to go through that?"

"The Schism?" He's calmed down a bit. His words are understandable. "It's just,

I want to leave. When we're ready we can take that TARDIS, and I'll get rid of the tracking device and you can pilot it. Morty will, I don't know, do repairs?

We'll come back for Romana when she graduates. We'll own the universe, Kosch. All we have to do is survive this and stay sane."

"Seems like the perfect future."

"Yeah, it'll be great." Koschei doesn't voice his thoughts on the matter. The perfect future doesn't always happen. In fact, nothing goes according to plan.

Darkness clings to him, wrapping him in as if he's the shell of a TARDIS.

Everything that he is is consumed by that omnipresent darkness. It swallows him, tearing away the good and reaching for its cousins.

He wants to scream and run, but the darkness binds him to the ground. It won't let him look away.

"Stay. Be glad. This is a gift. Enjoy your last moments of peace, for the drumming from the first grows stronger by the second. Enjoy the peace. Enjoy the symphony." The darkness whispers as it travels past his ears. It's voice is rusty and low. It's like nails on a chalkboard.

For some strange reason, he finds it comforting. He feels as if it's his only friend. As if it's always been by his side, whispering into his ear those hollow words.

"Listen. They are here."

The drums. The tune has risen. It's louder now.

The darkness tells him of a future that will soon come to be, as his mind readjusts to the beating drums. Of a man gone mad, of another who destroys everything they've known. It speaks of a God in ruins who ruins all.

It tells him his name.

He blinks open his eyes, and the chains on his feet are gone. The darkness stands by him, whispering its sweet- nothing's into his ear. It's his friend.

His only friend. Everyone else is gone. They betrayed him. Traitors.

The darkness is his friend. It'll never let him be one. The darkness will always be there. Whispering another word with every drumming beat.

He turns, and stalks down the room. All is silent, but the drumming and the whispers. All eyes are on him.

"Koschei, what's-"

"I am not Koschei," He's not. He's grown up. He has a friend. It whispers his name to him. It fills him with incredible joy. It shatters when he realizes that these people don't hear the darkness. They betrayed it. An enemy to the darkness is an enemy to him. "I am the Master, and you will address me as such, Yurinda."

Her name is vile. It stings his tongue. The darkness shows clear disapproval of the girl. She cheated it once. She could have been it's, but she didn't want such an honor. Traitor.

No traitor can be saved. The darkness will take them, soon. If it's stories come to prove true, the darkness will have them all.

And he will be their master.


	54. Final Authors Note

**A/N**

**Hi, guys. I don't know exactly how to go in with this, so I'll just say it. For a couple months now, I've stopped writing for this story. I've just given pre-written drabbles as new chapters. The thing is, I lost the document that held all of these chapters. It's completely gone, I searched for hours for it. I'm sorry about that, and I would rewrite them, but I can't. Every time I try, I either hate it and redo it, or spend half an hour on a single sentence. So, because of that circumstance with the document, I'm going to end this story.**

** Thanks to everyone for reading.**

**-Tardisbluesky**


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